So You Called Your DMO

I’m often the person telling short-term rental hosts to call their DMO. I say it casually, like it’s a normal thing people do all the time, which is part of the problem.

Because when that call actually happens, it rarely goes the way anyone imagines.

The host isn’t calling with a demand. They’re calling with a sense that they’ve wandered into a system they don’t fully understand and would rather not break. The DMO answers knowing they’re about to receive a question that technically relates to tourism, politically relates to housing, and operationally belongs to no one in particular.

So let’s talk about what’s really happening in that moment and why it matters.

The Call Is About Orientation, Not Answers

Hosts don’t call DMOs because they think DMOs have a secret rulebook. They call because they’ve reached the edge of what Google, Facebook groups, and platform dashboards can tell them.

The call is a way of asking, “Where am I standing?”

Most DMOs respond with what they have. Brand guidance, general context, links to membership co-op. That is usually enough for what the call actually is. A first point of contact, not a resolution.

The mistake is expecting the call to conclude something. Its real job is to situate someone inside the place they operate.

Awkwardness Is a System Signal

That polite, slightly clunky feeling after the call is not failure. It is data.

It means the host assumed the DMO had authority the DMO does not formally hold. It means the DMO felt responsibility without jurisdiction. It means both sides are operating in good faith inside a structure that has not caught up to reality.

Smooth systems do not generate these moments. Transitional ones do.

If the conversation feels unfinished, it is because the relationship between hosts and destinations is still being written.

DMOs Are Carrying More Than Their Charter

DMOs did not volunteer to become the emotional middle of the STR conversation. They inherited it.

They are balancing boards, public accountability, funding optics, and political nuance while being asked questions that touch zoning, enforcement, community trust, and economic impact, often without clear authority in any of those areas.

Taking the call anyway is not a lack of preparation. It is civic competence under constraint.

That deserves recognition.

Hosts Who Call Are Doing the Work Early

Most people do not call. They assume. Or they avoid. Or they wait until something goes wrong.

Calling early, before conflict, before enforcement, before headlines, is a quiet act of responsibility. Even if the outcome feels vague, the intent is clear.

That matters to destinations more than they often say out loud.

Alignment Starts Before Structure

We keep wanting alignment to look official. Policies, programs, playbooks.

But alignment actually starts messier than that.

It starts with contact. With curiosity. With two people acknowledging they are part of the same place, even if the roles are not clean yet.

That call does not solve the gap. It reveals it.

And you cannot fix what you will not name.

The Part That Matters Most

If you are a host and that call felt unfinished, you did not do it wrong. You stepped into a system that is still catching up.

If you are a DMO and you took the call without having a perfect answer, you did not fail. You showed up where the system is thin.

This is how alignment actually begins. Not with certainty, but with contact.

And that is why I will keep telling hosts to call.

I'm hosting (what I've been told is the first) get together for DMOs and STRs to make this way less awkward. Save the date

- I’m Jenn Barbee, translating the weird parts of the system on purpose.