Why DMOs Left Dallas Ready to Go All-In on Claude for Destination Marketing
By: Jake Stainbrook and Cody Haynes - Dallas, TX | April 27 - 29
The best destination revenue leaders don’t wait for the industry to catch up. They set the pace. That was on full display in Dallas at this year’s Destinations International Convention Sales & Services Summit, where the conversation around AI moved decisively from curiosity to commitment.
The field of AI tools is wide, and no one was pretending otherwise. But one name kept rising to the top in hallway conversations, Q&As, and working sessions alike: Claude. For destination marketing organizations, the shift was palpable – DMO leaders left not just energized, but with a sharper sense of direction on where to focus first.
Here’s what brought them to that moment.
If there was a single phrase that captured the mood at this year’s Destinations International Convention Sales & Services Summit in Dallas, it was something Todd Brook of Unchained AI said in his closing keynote: “The question is no longer whether AI belongs in destination sales. It’s how far ahead you want to be.”
For three days at the Sheraton Dallas, sales and services leaders from DMOs, convention centers, GSCs, and tech partners gathered to wrestle with what’s actually changing in our business – and what it’ll take to win the next decade. We came home with a notebook full of takeaways and one specific announcement we’re excited to share at the end of this post (skip ahead if you’re impatient – we won’t be offended).
The Claude Effect: How DMOs Are Moving from Inspired to In Motion
One of the most striking undercurrents of the summit was how many DMO sales leaders left Dallas with a concrete plan to adopt Claude immediately. Conversations in hallways, at dinner, and in post-session Q&As made one thing clear: the “wait and see” posture is over for a meaningful cohort of destination leaders, and the use cases driving that urgency are specific, measurable, and ready to act on today.
Some use cases that we at DIGIDECK have seen our DMO customers adopt are:
- Drive 2-3x proposal output with the same team Claude-assisted DIGIDECK workflows let sales teams draft, personalize, and assemble competitive proposals at a pace that was not possible before, without adding headcount. For destinations fighting over a constrained planner calendar, the ability to respond to more RFPs, faster, is a direct competitive advantage.
- Track which slides prospects view most to prioritize outreach Instead of following up on a fixed schedule, teams using Claude and DIGIDECK can see which slides prospects spend the most time on and which they skip, then reach out when engagement signals real buying intent. Fewer cold calls, more conversations that convert.
- Create mass updates to decks with ease. When rates change, venues open, or a brand refresh rolls out, updating a library of proposals has historically meant days of manual work. Claude and DIGIDECK together make it possible to push changes across an entire deck portfolio in a fraction of the time, keeping every client-facing asset current without burning a week of staff hours.
For the destinations that have already crossed from curiosity to commitment, the common thread is simple: they stopped looking for the perfect use case and started with the most painful one.
The throughline: relationships are still the moat, but the moat is getting deeper
Rodney Schlosser of Schlosser Consulting kicked things off Tuesday morning with a keynote – “Stronger Business Relationships as the Invisible Differentiator” – that set the tone for the entire summit. In a market where every destination is sourcing the same planners through the same RFP platforms, trust and personal brand are the differentiators that no tech can replicate.
That message echoed through Stephanie Turner’s session on what 400+ meeting planners told New Orleans & Company about how they actually want to be communicated with. The headline: planners aren’t just evaluating your destination – they’re evaluating the human on the other end of the email. Words still matter. Cadence still matters. Showing up like you’ve done your homework still matters.
AI - and Claude Specifically - Was the Loudest Conversation in the Room
You could not walk a hallway in Dallas without hearing AI talked about. Three sessions in particular stood out:
“From Possibility to Practice: How Destinations Are Using AI Today” – A fireside chat with Andrew Ortale (Visit Pittsburgh), Adam Paulisick (Skilly), and Tyler Kirsh (UNCHAINED) that pulled back the curtain on VisitPITTSBURGH’s AI-powered destination guides. What stood out was how unglamorous the wins were: faster planner responses, better recommendations for business event attendees, fewer hours spent on repetitive lookups. AI didn’t replace the team – it gave them their afternoons back.
“Behind Closed Doors: What Every Destination Executive Needs to Decide About AI Right Now” – Todd Brook of Unchained AI ran a workshop for senior leaders that intentionally avoided the demo theater. Attendees were asked to leave with two or three concrete commitments they could act on the following Monday. We heard a lot of CSOs say afterwards that this was the most useful session of the summit – not because they learned a new tool, but because they were forced to make a decision.
“Through the Door: AI, Human Connection, and the Future of Convention Sales” – Todd’s closing keynote crystallized the whole event. The pitch to sales leaders: stop watching from the sidelines. AI handles the research, surfaces the insights, and automates the busywork. Your job is to redeploy that time into the human work – the relationships, the trust, the judgment calls – that no platform can replicate. That isn’t a threat. It’s the biggest opportunity convention sales has had in a generation.
If you only watched one session on demand, make it that one.
Data alignment was the runner-up theme
A close second to AI was the conversation around shared data and aligned evaluation. Susan Bruinzeel (SightLIGNE), Teri Orton (Hawaii Convention Center), and Lynn Whitehead (HVCB) walked through how Hawaii’s DMO and convention center stopped fighting over different versions of the truth by integrating space, financial, and CRM data into a single reporting framework. The result wasn’t just a prettier dashboard – it was clearer accountability and a measurable reduction in friction between two organizations that had to work together.
That session paired beautifully with the Cvent + Tourism Economics breakout on rethinking lead evaluation, and the follow-on Community Lab where DMOs, hotels, and convention centers actually sat together and pressure-tested how they score business. Several attendees told us this was the first time they’d had that conversation with their hotel partners in the same room.
Services is finally getting its due
For years, destination services has been treated as a post-booking function. This summit may have been the moment that changed. Liana Acevedo (Richmond Regional Tourism) and Amanda Fox (Visit Rochester) made the case for services as a strategic function in their session on the evolution of destination services. Jaimie Hart (Go Fish Tourism) went further in the opening sales breakout, arguing that services is a full-funnel demand driver – influencing planner decisions long before the contract is signed.
The “They’re Not Buying Your Destination” debate session – featuring Colleen Phalen (Miles Partnership), Jilien Harvey (AEG Vision), and Alex Batista (Greater Miami CVB) – was the most entertaining session of the week and made one point hard to forget:
Planners aren't choosing your destination. They're choosing the version of your destination where their event succeeds. Sales and services have to be telling the same story.
A few other moments worth calling out
- The GSC panel with Brad Hobson (Freeman), Chuck Grouzard (GES), and Brad Kent (Visit Dallas) was a candid look at what’s actually changing in event execution from people who see it from the inside out.
- UNSCRIPTED, the unrehearsed leadership panel with Dustin Arnheim (Choose Chicago), Leslie Johnson (Visit Milwaukee), and Lorne Edwards (Visit Phoenix), was as advertised – no talking points, no safety nets, and some of the most honest career advice you’ll hear at a conference.
- Tempest’s “Every Meeting Counts” and Simpleview/Granicus’s “Stop Guessing” sessions back-to-back made a strong case that the days of “year over year” being a sufficient benchmark are over. Sales leaders are being asked to compare against region, competitive set, and similarly-sized destinations – and to do it in something resembling real time.
The sports tourism panel with Nathan Hermiston (Visit KC), Charlene Lopez (Atlanta CVB), and Iman Fahmy (Destination Augusta) was a refreshingly honest take on what’s working and what’s been overpromised in destination sports strategy.
What we're announcing: the DIGIDECK MCP Connector
We came to Dallas listening, but we also came with news. Sitting in those AI sessions confirmed what we’ve been hearing from our customers all year: DMO sales and services teams want AI that works with the tools they already use, not a new platform to learn.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the DIGIDECK MCP Connector!
What is an MCP Connector?
For DMOs already exploring Claude, this makes the connection direct and purpose-built. The DIGIDECK AI Connector is a new Model Context Protocol, or MCP, server that plugs DIGIDECK directly into Claude, ChatGPT Enterprise, and any AI agent platform that speaks MCP. Once connected, an AI agent can:
- Pull live deck data – search across your destination’s DIGIDECK library, retrieve slides, speaker notes, and embedded media on demand.
- Read engagement analytics – surface which prospects opened which decks, which slides held attention, and where decks went cold, so reps can follow up at the right moment.
- Personalize at scale – assemble a tailored DIGIDECK for a specific planner from existing modular content, then drop the share link straight into a draft email or Slack message.
- Brief any rep, any time – ask “what’s the latest deck for the [Planner Name] opportunity and how did they engage?” and get a clean answer with the right link attached.
DIGIDECK also integrates with common DMO CRMs, including SimpleView and IDSS Tempest, and can provide updated dates, rates, and spaces to any presentation.
Why MCP, and why now
We chose MCP because it’s the protocol that’s actually winning. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft are all converging on MCP as the standard way for AI agents to talk to enterprise tools. That means the connector you wire up today will keep working as your team’s AI stack evolves – no rebuilds, no rewrites.
It also means DIGIDECK fits naturally into the workflow Todd Brook described from the closing keynote stage: AI agents handling the research and the assembly, freeing your reps to do the relationship work that actually closes business.
How to get the connector
If you’re a DIGIDECK customer and want access to the DIGIDECK AI Connector, reach out to your customer success contact or hit reply on this post. If you’re not a DIGIDECK customer, schedule time with us to see if live and talk about how it fits your DMO.
Closing Thoughts
The clearest signal from Dallas: the destinations winning the next cycle are the ones that get specific about AI early – not because the technology is magic, but because the time it gives back is what funds the human work that wins business.
If you’re a DMO leader looking to explore how Claude fits into your destination marketing stack, we’d love to show you what’s possible. Reach out to connect with us here.
Big thanks to Destinations International, Brad Weaber for emceeing, the Visit Dallas team for hosting, and every speaker and attendee who made this one of the most useful summits we’ve attended in years. See you in 2027!