We ALL Host This Place. Welcome to the Lab.

Tourism keeps talking around the problem. We are walking straight into it.

Today the Hosts & Home Teams site goes live.

And before anyone assumes this is another conference with an AI panel, weak coffee, and a keynote that could have been an email…

No.

Nobody’s getting a flimsy tote bag and calling it transformation.

Here’s what finally clicked for me.

DMOs have their conferences.

STRs have theirs.

And somehow, everyone spends half the time talking about the other group instead of talking with them.

Different rooms. Different badges. Same assumptions.

After watching that loop long enough, I realized we didn’t need another conversation about alignment.

We needed somewhere to actually practice it.

So we built a lab.

Not a debate stage.

Not a side-taking exercise.

And definitely not a panel where everyone agrees in public and vents in the hallway five minutes later.

A lab means curiosity wins.

We test ideas. We look directly at the friction. We stop defending lanes just because we’re used to driving in them.

Tourism doesn’t need another event we politely survive.

It needs something useful.

What happens at the first lab?

Portland, Oregon, the day after the Destinations International Annual Conference.

We chose The Reser, a performing arts center, not a conference hall.

• No ballroom energy.

• No stale air.

• No pretending you’re listening while secretly answering email.

You walk in and immediately know this isn’t business as usual.

And one more thing.

This is not a popularity contest. Not a FOMO play.

We’re intentionally keeping it small and workable. 50 hosts and 50 home team leaders in the room so people can actually talk, think, and build together instead of just networking at each other.

Small on purpose. Big on impact.

One unique feature is what we’re calling explorable art.

Real issues turned into experiences you can walk through.

Every installation has QR codes so you can go deeper into the research and context if you want to nerd out a little.

And instead of waiting for someone to summarize later, we’ll have live scribes capturing real-time insights as they happen. The moments where people shift their thinking. The stuff that normally disappears once everyone heads to the airport.

You watch the conversation evolve while you’re standing in it.

Because the goal isn’t performance.

It’s progress.

• Destination identity.

• Host identity.

• Housing pressure.

• Workforce realities.

• Community trust.

• Host alignment.

The things people usually whisper about finally go center stage.

And once you see the whole system together, the question changes.

Less “who’s right.”

More “what actually works?”

Why me?

Fair question.

Years ago, I helped usher in the internet for destinations.

And before you roll your eyes and go, “Okay grandma,” hear me out.

Early 2000's:

• New forces moving faster than the system could absorb.

• Big "this is a phase" energy

• Leaders being asked to take risks without a roadmap.

• A lot of people quietly wondering if the old model was about to collapse.

Sound familiar?

Because here we are again.

Metioric STR growth changed occupancy patterns. Market conditions shifted faster than policy or culture could keep up. DMO leaders are being asked to adapt while still delivering KPIs like nothing changed.

The pattern isn’t new.

When the internet showed up, the destinations that thrived weren’t the ones who fought it the hardest.

• They were the ones willing to experiment.

• To learn in public.

• To update the playbook while the game was already happening.

That is what this lab is.

Portland is the first imprint.

After that, the lab travels.

The framework stays open-source so towns, cities, and states can adapt it to their own reality.

Each stop adds insight. More perspective. More usable truth.

The lab gets smarter as it moves.

• Most people in tourism are trying to do the right thing.

• Hosts are building livelihoods.

• DMO teams are balancing community pressure and economic reality.

• Everyone is carrying more than people realize.

Nobody wakes up trying to be the problem.

That’s why this exists.

The site is live.

The lab is open.

And the conversation shifts from us versus them to what we build next.

I’m Jenn Barbee. We ALL host this place. Welcome to the lab.