Several Advance Travel & Tourism clients earned recognition at the Mississippi Tourism Association’s 2026 Tourism Awards Program, with honors spanning destination leadership, research, partnership and industry service.

What a hometown concert, a marathon, and nearly 200,000 event attendees can teach us about what makes a destination worth visiting. On a moonlit Saturday evening, cool fall air chilled the 102,000 fans waiting for Twenty One Pilots to begin their largest and longest show to date. Suddenly, Ohio Stadium exploded in a wash of red as every screen and every [...]

The future of travel marketing isn't about creating more content. It's about creating something AI can't reproduce without you. There is a fundamental problem emerging in travel marketing, and it has very little to do with whether you're using ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or whatever new AI product showed up while I was writing this sentence. The problem is that we have [...]

The future of destination marketing isn't simply about being discovered. It's about becoming a destination that travelers, and the AI systems helping them, can trust. Imagine planning the perfect family vacation. You want hiking trails with spectacular views, restaurants worth traveling for, beautiful beaches, and enough activities to entertain the kids. Maybe there's skiing in the winter, incredible shopping, and a quiet [...]

Earlier this week, I taught a graduate class on effective communication at the University of Michigan. I brought four stories I have used in keynotes and, after telling each one, broke down what made it work. Where did the audience become curious? Which detail carried the idea? What changed in the way they understood the subject? The question underneath all of [...]

This week, brands are borrowing from nightlife to earn a place in people’s calendars. Facebook and Instagram are testing feeds that put video first. And consumers are continuing to spend despite their frustration with the economy.