Destination marketing has always been about promotion and influence, inspiring people to imagine themselves somewhere else, and that hasn’t changed. What has changed is what travelers trust on the way there.
Today, decisions are shaped in fragmented pieces: a question answered by AI, a recommendation from a friend, a quick scan across social platforms. Inspiration still matters, but confidence now determines action. In a landscape where information is abundant and sources blur together, trust has become the most valuable currency a destination can earn.
That reality expands the role of DMOs. Beyond telling stories, destinations are also responsible for how information shows up, how expectations are set and how consistently the experience delivers on what’s promised. When trust is earned, loyalty follows. When it’s reinforced, destinations build resilience that extends well beyond a single trip.
Three forces are reshaping destination marketing today, redefining how trust is built, how loyalty is earned and how success can be measured.
1. Managing Trust at Scale: AI and New Discovery
AI doesn’t just change how destinations are discovered. It changes how trust is formed and grown.
Generative AI is quickly becoming a mainstream entry point for travel planning, with nearly 40% of U.S. travelers already using AI tools to research and plan trips, a figure that continues to climb each year. These tools can deliver instant answers about transportation, safety, accessibility and timing, often drawing from destination-owned content and third-party sources connected to the DMO.
However, that increase in AI adoption comes with tension among consumers. Booking.com’s Global AI Sentiment Report shows that while AI is widely used, trust lags behind, with only 6% of consumers fully trusting AI, and most continuing to double-check its outputs because of a lack of human touch.
When content is accurate, current and well-structured, AI can extend a destination’s voice far beyond owned channels, carrying not just facts, but tone, values and context into the planning journey. In this environment, content moves beyond just informing travelers. It’s training the systems that increasingly shape how destinations are found and understood. This is an area we’ve been actively exploring in our recent white paper on AI search and discovery, which outlines practical steps to optimize a destination's presence in AI search.
A strong example of taking this work into their own hands comes from Visit Myrtle Beach, which has embedded AI directly into the destination’s digital experience. By integrating AI-powered native site search and partnering with Mindtrip to support itinerary building and real-time trip questions, the destination enables travelers to explore relevant interests, plan visits and get answers without leaving the website. These tools draw from Visit Myrtle Beach’s own content alongside trusted partner sources, keeping the destination’s voice and context central. Rather than giving up searches to third-party platforms, Visit Myrtle Beach is using AI to guide travelers with clarity and confidence, demonstrating how destinations can actively shape how AI supports planning while reinforcing trust at the moments that matter most.
Another example comes from Icelandair, which leaned into growing anxiety around AI-generated content with a playful campaign that asks a simple question: Is Iceland even real? By humorously casting doubt on landscapes that almost seem too perfect, the work taps into broader skepticism about what travelers see online without trying to outdo it. Instead, it deepens the destination’s credibility by celebrating what can’t be fabricated and inviting travelers to experience it firsthand. In a world where AI can manufacture near-perfect imagery, the campaign shows how destinations can earn trust by leading with authenticity, clarity and confidence rather than chasing artificial perfection.
The opportunity here is really about intention. When destinations take responsibility for how their information shows up and travels, AI can strengthen trust rather than distort it. In that sense, AI strategy becomes a core part of destination marketing and how credibility is built.
2. Building Loyalty Through Confidence: How Trust Drives Return
Loyalty has long been associated with emotional connection and repeat visitation. Those factors still matter. But today, loyalty is increasingly built on confidence and consistency.
Phocuswright research shows that while travelers may have preferred brands, more than half still use brands outside their “favorites” in a given year, signaling how fluid loyalty has become. In this context, trust becomes a differentiator. Travelers return not just to destinations they love, but to those that reliably deliver on what was promised.
This shift is playing out all across the travel industry. Skift’s recent review of airline loyalty trends in 2025 highlights this dynamic, noting that transparency, flexibility and follow-through now matter more than aspirational rewards alone. Loyalty is increasingly earned through reliability, not just brand affinity.
Trust-based loyalty is built well before arrival. It’s built through clear information, realistic representation and expectation-setting across the planning journey. When those fundamentals are in place, travelers feel confident choosing a destination again and advocating for it.
Hawai‘i offers a clear example of how destination work can bolster long-term loyalty over time. The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority’s consistent focus on island differentiation, place-based storytelling and clear expectation-setting has helped build familiarity and confidence among travelers. Their recent “Hawai‘i Stays With You” campaign centers on lived values, such as aloha as openness and ʻohana as connection, positioning a visit as a relationship with the place and people rather than a transaction. According to the 2024 Annual Visitor Research Report, repeat visitors make up the majority of arrivals statewide, with Maui alone seeing nearly 73% repeat visitation in 2024. That level of loyalty reflects more than affinity. It reflects trust earned through consistency and delivery.
Looking at the broader hospitality industry, similar loyalty dynamics are emerging. In October 2025, fast-casual restaurant CAVA introduced a first-of-its-kind status matching program, allowing customers to transfer loyalty status from airlines, hotels and other brands directly into its revamped CAVA Rewards program. By recognizing established loyalty rather than requiring customers to start from zero, CAVA reduces friction and builds confidence from the first interaction. For destinations, the takeaway is clear: loyalty is strengthened when brands acknowledge prior trust, meet people where they are and consistently deliver on what’s promised.
3. Redefining Performance: Measuring What Builds Trust
As trust becomes central to destination marketing, how success is measured must evolve alongside it. Traditional metrics like impressions, pageviews and engagement still have value, but they don’t fully capture whether travelers feel confident moving forward. Phocuswright research consistently shows that while travelers may still express brand preference, their decisions are more driven by fundamentals like value, reliability and clarity.
Today, trust shows up in behavior, both from visitors and residents, through deeper engagement with destination content, repeat visitation, positive advocacy and sustained local support.
That trust is measurable on the resident side as well. According to Future Partners, a record 48% of Americans say tourism makes their community a better place to live, underscoring that destination success increasingly depends on local confidence and support, not just visitor volume.
As one of Europe’s fastest-growing urban destinations, Copenhagen launched CULTIGEN to better understand and manage the impact of tourism beyond volume alone. The initiative combines community-driven input with quantitative and qualitative data to capture how visitors and residents experience the city in real time, enabling the destination to measure readiness, fit and shared responsibility beyond growth and visitation. That same philosophy extends to initiatives like CopenPay, which rewards travelers for positive behaviors rather than spend, and DestinationPay, which expands the model globally so destinations around the world can incentivize and measure actions aligned with local values. Together, these efforts give Copenhagen clearer insight into how visitors engage within the destination and demonstrate how trust and loyalty can be measured, strengthened and activated, shifting performance beyond transactions toward participation and alignment.
The Opportunity Ahead
Destination marketing hasn’t stopped being about inspiration. It’s just expanded to include trust across an increasingly complex ecosystem.
By managing AI intentionally, building confidence-driven loyalty and measuring what matters, DMOs have an opportunity to lead with clarity, credibility and consistency. In the age of trust, those qualities are good for travelers, but they’re essential to the long-term performance and relevance of DMOs themselves.
