To Market Stewardship, Use Local Voices

? Destination Stewardship Report – Vol. 3, No. 1 – Summer 2022 ?

We last visited Sedona, Arizona in our Spring 2021 (Vol. 1, No.4) issue, to report on their plan for getting a handle on overtourism. It’s still a struggle. Here, Holly Prievo of GLP Films describes how a strategic video campaign that enlists local support and participation can shift a DMO from destination promotion to marketing stewardship – a model for any destination.

[Above: GLP’s trailer, “The Soul of Sedona” ]

Video Stories Feature Local People in Bid to Help Overrun Sedona, AZ

How can we widely communicate the need to preserve a remarkable destination suffering from overtourism without drawing more people to it?

In our 2021 work with Sedona, Arizona, that was exactly the question. GLP Films works with destinations to strategize and work toward sustainability goals using storytelling. Sedona, its community rife with resentment and its fragile ecosystem threatened by the feet of millions, was hoping to raise awareness about the consequences of irresponsible tourism through a video campaign deployed in a manner that could educate current visitors without leading to more.

These conflicting concerns make solutions for any single issue difficult, and certainly satisfying all would be a challenge. But it was clear that destination stewardship was needed to improve environmental & social conditions while upholding the local economy that is so heavily dependent upon tourism.

Our Process – The Missing Piece

Pursuing responsible destination management starts with community input. In the case of Sedona, getting the local community on board for any communication plan was imperative, as friction from tourism had made the local community critical of anything resembling marketing. The campaign was contingent upon raising the understanding of the benefits of tourism throughout the local residents, and bringing the community into the conversation to garner a sense of involvement, ownership, and pride for Sedona, not only as a magical landscape but as a destination that upheld environmental standards to protect it.

Sunrise over a Sedona landscape. [Photo courtesy of Jake Belvin]

Sedona was already deploying environmental campaigns to educate visitors and residents alike on environmental stewardship. However, GLP recognized the need for an emotional lift to the messaging. Involving local champions and voices allowed us to tie in the community and provide another perspective to viewers, personalizing the messaging. These authentic voices of local champions would connect viewers with the human side of the destination and elevate the sense of reverence visitors might experience for the landscape, instead of just presenting them with facts and rules.

Pre-Production

In order to find and select champions for the campaign, as well as get buy-in from the community, it was essential that our team made ourselves accessible and open up the lines of communication with the local community. Throughout the pre-production process, we solicited community input. Our scouting trip, community “town hall” meetings, and in-depth interviews with champions and local stakeholders uncovered concerns and informed the direction for the campaign.

Incorporating listening tools helped reduce misconceptions about the project, allowed community members to voice their concerns and have them addressed where possible, and become part of the conversation for a campaign that had everyone’s best interests in mind.

GLP works closely with local organizations like the Sedona Mountain Biking Academy. [Photo courtesy of Rob Holmes]

Post-Production 

Understanding the concerns of the community regarding marketing Sedona further, a Town Hall was held to premier the trailer, The Soul of Sedona, and reiterate the purpose and use of this campaign. Conscious of the community’s trepidation towards the work, we collaborated closely with Visit Sedona to communicate the intentions behind the campaign as well as provide an opportunity for residents to ask questions and voice their concerns. We discussed how the videos were to be used, who the intended audience was, and how it would alleviate strain on the landscape, then opened up the floor for the community members to have an open discussion about their concerns and expectations.

Responsible Deployment

This particular campaign was geared toward marketing stewardship, not the destination. In order to do this, our approach was centered on:

  1. Pulling in voices of the local community, instead of featuring visitors and travelers.
  2. Highlighting the emotional messaging and storytelling to invoke a sense of reverence, respect, and responsibility toward preserving the landscape.
  3. Promoting the campaign on location, specifically on hotel channels, or to those already booked to visit Sedona, instead of on travel platforms where the videos might encourage more bookings and visits.

Throughout our work with Sedona, we discovered that Sedona’s main problem was one of balance: an economy dependent on tourism in contention with an ecosystem compromised by too much of it and a beleaguered local community inconvenienced by it.

By pulling in locals, relying on their voices for an emotional lift for the campaign, and careful placement of the messaging and campaign assets, we were able to balance the varied and somewhat conflicting needs of the destination.

One element that could have made the campaign more successful, we believe, would have been documenting and measuring the sentiment of the community members pre-project to post-project. Although town halls and open communication were prioritized throughout the process, further qualitative analysis through surveys would have been helpful to measure the community’s perception of the campaign before and after, and ultimately, its effect on the local ecosystems and perception of tourism in the region.

Our final product consisted of three videos, two-to-three minutes each, focused on the three key drivers for tourism identified by Visit Sedona – outdoor recreation, spiritual transformation, and the arts.

For any given destination the cost for a video campaign is driven by many variables, starting with the budget of the film partner and then the scope of work, location, deliverables, schedule, and so on. Video is a powerful tool for education and beyond. It’s a medium that allows complex messages to be distilled and delivered compellingly using both audio and visual cues, creating an experience around the message, and showing instead of telling

Saving a Wisconsin Trout Stream

[Above: Shooting in Wisconsin’s “Kinni.” Photo: Erika Gilsdorf]

Kinnickinnic River, Wisconsin – Our original concept video (featuring the same young hosts as in Sierra Gorda) takes a look at a success story in rural and notes-rural Wisconsin. Shot off-season in November, young travelers have fun while learning about the rescue an endangered trout stream, Wisconsin’s Kinnickinnic River, known among locals and anglers as “the Kinni.” You can watch it as a short clip, 15 seconds to a minute, suitable for social media—

—or longer, up to 4 minutes, suitable for Youtube and websites:

Under the leadership of DSC video producer Erika Gilsdorf,

➤   WE INVITE APPLICATIONS

. . . for your stewardship success story to be featured as the next World’s Inspiring Place in the online series. We will assist with arranging the necessary tax-deductible funding and distribution options. There are lots of ways to do this. For a conversation and more details, contact us: info@destinationcenter.org.

“Inspiring Places” Pilot Video Released

[Above: A Sierra Gorda panorama. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot]

Featuring Sierra Gorda, Querétaro, Mexico

We chose the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve as the international pilot for this series because of one organization’s well-established success in their approach to conservation: Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda. In the videos, our two millennial hosts enjoy exploring the region as they discover how Grupo Ecológico has achieved its success.

Video hosts Ian and Christian at Cuatro Palos, Sierra Gorda. Photo: Hassen Salum

By working closely both with the local rural population, many of whom live at subsistence level, and with a succession of state and local governments, Grupo Ecológico has helped protect a wide variety of natural habitats while gradually making northeastern Querétaro into a scenic paradise for international travelers seeking an authentic Mexican experience.

You can now see and link to the Sierra Gorda videos on our YouTube channel, World’s Inspiring Places.  There are three versions:

Subscribe to the channel to see additional videos about Sierra Gorda and shooting World’s Inspiring Places pilot.

The World’s Inspiring Places is a short-form online travel series created by Erika Gilsdorf, owner and producer of South Shore Productions, and Jonathan Tourtellot, director of the Destination Stewardship Center, both based in the United States. The series aims to showcase stewardship success stories around the world where people are working to help conserve or preserve the cultural and natural heritage of a destination, or creating a unique travel experience the supports and builds on that heritage.

Destinations do not pay for the videos; we look instead for external support free from local conflict of interest. In the case of Sierra Gorda, we are grateful for generous support from Freightliner.

The mission of World’s Inspiring Places is to encourage travelers to visit, enjoy, and appreciate authentic destinations that protect their nature, culture, and sense of place; to help individuals, businesses, and governments care for these places and the people who live there; and to inform and inspire leaders to secure a solid economic future through wise destination stewardship.

For two reasons, we encourage you to enjoy the Sierra Gorda videos and link to them through your own social media, blogs, or websites. First, Grupo Ecológico’s work is truly a model for the rest of the world, worthy of dissemination. Second, we seek new topics for World’s Inspiring Places and, of course, ongoing sponsorship support for a series that will, we hope, showcase the world’s best examples of great stewardship and rewarding travel.

Our thanks to Grupo Ecológico for their help with our six-day shoot this past August, and with my own visit in October. Our appreciation also to Freightliner for their financial support and to Antonio del Rosal of Experiencias Genuinas  for his assistance in serving as our Mexican liaison.

If you have a proposal for the next World’s Inspiring Places, please see our page on how to apply, or contact us to begin a conversation.

Contact us, too, if you would like to download your own copy of a video, including a high-resolution version for audience presentations and the like.

Sierra Gorda To Lead New Video Series

[Above: Video hosts Ian and Christian at Cuatro Palos, Sierra Gorda. Photo: Hassen Salum]

Our First “World’s Inspiring Places,” a Short-Form Travel Documentary

I can’t wait to show everyone this amazing place I’ve fallen in love with and tell the story of what makes it truly inspiring. Mexico’s Sierra Gorda is the star of our new online travel pilot, The World’s Inspiring Places, a video that we are releasing Sunday January 28, 2018. It prelaunched on 15 January 2018 with a one-minute version at the Awards Forum of the United Nations World Tourism Organization in Madrid, Spain. Check out the trailer!

For me, the concept behind The World’s Inspiring Places probably started the day I found myself yelling at a tourist to stop standing on the coral while they cleared their goggles. I’d had enough of overcrowded destinations making a buck at the expense of nature. It was time for me to focus on places in the world that were doing something right to protect where people loved to travel.

My passion led me to some of my first stories in Central America around reforestation, coral reef protection, overfishing and sustainable tourism.

My son got to tag along with me on shoots and grew up seeing sometimes the not-so-great underbelly from the impacts of such things as overdevelopment, logging, and poverty. While friends were boasting about their recent cruise or resort vacation, my son had been learning how local villagers were replanting sides of mountains, or he’d be on a boat with biologists counting boat propeller cuts on whale shark backs. It wasn’t always pretty. But it was definitely inspiring. Despite what often seemed like insurmountable challenges, these regular people, often with fewer means than most, were doing extraordinary things to protect their own places.

For me it’s fun that my son, Christian—he’s the one with the man bun in the videos—agreed to be one of the hosts, along with his college friend Ian. They further agreed to meet our very tight budget by hosting, well, for the fun of the trip. So we were off for an incredible 6-day filming project with a small, never-tiring, amazing crew from Mexico.

We set the bar high choosing the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve as the pilot for this series. Grupo Ecológico is a small organization that has had incredible success recognized globally in their approach to conservation, all while making an adventurer’s paradise. We appreciate Freightliner‘s support in covering the costs of video production and thereby supporting the work of Grupo Ecológico.

I’ve found my career’s passion in producing The World’s Inspiring Places, and it’s happened by partnering with Jonathan Tourtellot and the Destination Stewardship Center. A venture like this can’t be done alone, and it’s been fun joining forces to tell stewardship success stories from the traveler’s point of view—stories of truly inspiring people and places.

Join us as next week as we travel through the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve. Find out for yourself why this place is one of the best.

Tell us what you think! And if you have a proposal for the next “World’s Inspiring Places,” see our page on how to apply, or contact us to begin a conversation.

 

 

Video Your Success Story

[Above: Shooting the concept video in Wisconsin. Photo: Erika Gilsdorf]

ANNOUNCEMENT:
The nonprofit Destination Stewardship Center is launching a new video tool for helping you show and distribute your stewardship success stories across multimedia platforms for travelers, practitioners, and the general public.

We Can Help Fund and Shoot Your Stewardship Successes

The DSC’s new pilot program is intended to help destinations tell their stories by means of the most rapidly growing and influential medium of all: video. Proposed series title:

“The World’s Inspiring Places”

Short-form videos now power social media. They help tourists make travel decisions. They help practitioners learn from each other. They help governments learn how and where to find needed methods and expertise.

“Video is a mega trend, in a decade, video will look like as big a shift in the way we share and communicate as mobile has been.” —Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook

According to Insivia, using video in various forms has almost become a staple in digital marketing tactics:

  • By 2017, online video will account for 74% of all online traffic.
  • 55% of people watch videos online every day.
  • Including video in a landing page can increase conversion by 80%.
  • 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter.
  • 51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.

Our goal is not standard promotional videos, but rather a video series that showcases stewardship success stories—ways in which people have helped protect and enhance a distinctive natural and cultural assets of a place, and thus enrich both the travel experience and local quality of life. Any kind of destination may have a qualifying story, whether urban, wild, or rural, as recently described by DSC Director Jonathan Tourtellot on National Geographic Voices.

To see how this will work, take a look at our brief Video Pilot Invitation deck (pdf).

Our concept video illustrates the basic idea by using the case of a rescued trout stream, Wisconsin’s Kinnickinnic River, known among locals and anglers as “the Kinni.” You can watch it as a short clip, 15 seconds to a minute, suitable for social media . . .

. . . or longer, up to 4 minutes, suitable for Youtube and for websites:

Under the leadership of DSC video producer Erika Gilsdorf,

➤ WE NOW INVITE APPLICATIONS

. . . for your stewardship success story to be featured this summer in the pilots for the online series. We will assist with arranging the necessary tax-deductible funding and distribution options. There are lots of ways to do this. For a conversation and more details, contact us: info@destinationcenter.org.

This information also appears on our dedicated page, Tell Your Video Story.

Services and Tools

Ways We Can Help

The Destination Stewardship Center is all about providing knowledge for improving the interaction between tourism and care for destinations, with special emphasis on protecting and enhancing the authenticity of your place. We can help your community manage tourism so as   to ensure maximum benefit at minimum cost while sustaining and enhancing local natural, cultural, historic, and scenic heritage.

By means of workshops, webinars, onsite evaluations and presentations, training sessions, and project-development consulting, DSC Director Jonathan Tourtellot and our various associates and partners can provide information on an array of ways to improve destination stewardship in your country, region, or locale, especially the start-up phase of establishing a collaborative approach.

Collaboration How-To – Step by step methods for convening a destination stewardship council, customized for your locale, by DSC Director Jonathan Tourtellot and associates. We can present ways to achieve better care for a destination and management of tourism. (Fees vary; free for deserving cases.)

Measurement – Rapid self-assessment tool for destinations with emphasis on character of place in addition to customary environmental and social sustainability factors.

Action – Information on catalytic projects for advancing the process of building a destination stewardship council and approaches for its long-term viability.

Cartography – A participatory mapping approach pioneered at National Geographic for raising awareness of a destination’s endemic attributes, useful both for tourist information and residential appreciation.

Outreach – Opportunity to place your story in the Destination Stewardship Report (free) read by fellow practitioners around the world. Contact us with a proposal.

Media training – Ways to improve storytelling about your destination, presented by DSC Director Jonathan Tourtellot based on his three decades of editorial experience at National Geographic and additional years elsewhere.

Videography – Behind-the-scenes videos for all audiences about your destination and the process of conserving its natural, scenic, and cultural character.

Consulting – Assistance with destination stewardship in general.

Free information resources on this website:

Archive of all Destination Stewardship Report stories. You are invited to contribute by contacting us.

Stewardship Resource directories. Add your own listing by contacting us.


As a founding member of the Future of Tourism Coalition, we can bring to bear many of our partners’ services and tools as well.