Why destination marketing should be part of your conversion journey

For visitor attractions, it is natural to focus on what happens inside the gates, but visitors rarely make decisions in such a neat and isolated way.

In their presentation to the National Marketing Attractions Conference 2026, Laura Baxter, founder of Your CMO and board director at Visit Isle of Wight, and Dominic Wray, Chief Executive of Visit Isle of Wight showed  how attractions can get much more from their destination marketing organisation when they stop treating it as a notice board and start treating it as a commercial partner.

Visitors are buying the whole trip

An attraction may be the spark that starts the idea of a visit, but it is often not the only reason someone decides to travel. This is especially true for destinations that need visitors to make more effort. The Isle of Wight is a strong example. It has major attractions, beaches, heritage sites, family experiences and outdoor activities. But for many visitors, the decision also includes the ferry, the travel time and the sense of whether the whole trip is worth it.

The same applies to many attractions across the UK. A family might love the look of a new ride or an exhibition, yet they still need to know whether there is enough nearby to fill the day. That is where destination marketing becomes commercially important. A strong DMO does not just promote individual attractions. It reduces the perceived risk of the whole trip.

Stop asking for posts

If the only thing an attraction asks from its DMO is another social media post, the relationship is probably too shallow. Attractions often approach DMOs with a product-led mindset looking to promote a new event, a new ride, a new offer or a new campaign. They want the DMO to push it out. But a DMO is not there to act as a notice board. Its job is to sell the destination as a whole and so attractions need to show how their product helps tell a bigger story.

A new ride is not just a new ride. It can be a reason for families to choose the destination this summer.

A dog-friendly attraction is not just ticking a facilities box. It helps make the destination easier for dog-owning families.

A rainy day offer is not just a promotion. It helps solve one of the biggest barriers to UK short breaks.

That shift in messaging makes it much easier for a DMO to include the attraction in campaigns, itineraries, PR stories and destination content.

Make it easy for your DMO to promote you

Attractions should be supplying DMOs with useful, up-to-date content on a regular basis. That includes strong imagery, video, audience information, seasonal hooks, awards, news stories and trackable booking links. A shared folder can help. So can regular updates that explain what is happening and why it matters for the destination. The more useful material a DMO has, the easier it becomes to include an attraction in wider campaigns.

It also helps the attraction move beyond one-off mentions. Instead of appearing as a standalone listing, it can become part of a family weekend itinerary, a thrill-seeker guide, a dog-friendly holiday campaign or a rainy day content piece. That is where the real value starts to appear.

The sweet spot between attraction goals and destination goals

Attractions and DMOs are often trying to achieve slightly different things. While attractions want ticket sales, visitor numbers, revenue and brand awareness DMOs want more stays, higher spend, longer seasons and a stronger destination brand.

When attractions and DMOs collaborate well, they create stronger reasons to visit the destination. That can help bring more people into the area and give individual attractions a better chance of being included in the visitor’s plans. This matters because attractions are not only competing with each other, they are also competing against other destinations, cheap overseas breaks, Netflix, gaming, YouTube and staying at home.

A joined-up destination story gives visitors more reasons to say yes.

Collaboration makes the whole destination stronger

On the Isle of Wight, a renewed focus on collaboration has helped attractions, accommodation providers, ferry operators and other businesses work more closely together. When businesses operate in silos, they may see each other only as competitors. But in many cases, the bigger challenge is getting people to choose the destination in the first place. Once more visitors arrive, everyone has a chance to benefit from a bigger market.

A DMO can also give the sector a stronger collective voice. Dominic gave the example of local roadworks and transport issues. Individual businesses had raised concerns on their own. The DMO was able to bring those concerns together and speak on behalf of the wider visitor economy.

That kind of role goes beyond marketing. It helps build confidence, trust and shared momentum across the destination.

A DMO still needs to be commercially focused

DMOs need to remember their core purpose. They should help bring visitors into the destination and support the businesses that fund or engage with them. While wider topics such as sustainability and advocacy are important, the foundation has to be effective destination marketing.

The DMO needs to think more like a commercial marketing agency, with its members and partners as its clients and its job as selling the destination in a way that delivers results.

For Visit Isle of Wight, that includes a focus on improving the destination website as the island’s shop window. A stronger website can not only help sell the island more effectively but it can also help to generate more revenue for the organisation and better results for the businesses it supports.

The real opportunity: become part of the destination story

Attractions should not see destination marketing as separate from their own marketing but rather as part of the conversion journey.

A DMO can help answer the questions that sit around the visit, helping to package the experience and show why the trip is worth the time, cost and effort. But that only works when attractions give their DMO more than last-minute posters and requests for posts. The most effective relationships are built on shared content, shared goals and a shared understanding of what will make visitors choose the destination.

The take home message – stop treating your DMO as a notice board. Start treating it as a partner in conversion. The attractions that benefit most will be the ones that help sell the bigger story. Not just what happens at their venue, but why the whole trip is worth making.

To watch the presentation in full get your On Demand Tickets from Zoom

What changing visitor behaviour means for museums, heritage sites and cultural attractions

Audience behaviour is changing quickly. For museums and cultural attractions, that means the old assumptions about how people discover, choose, book and experience a visit may no longer hold true. Visitors are more selective, more informed and more demanding. They are comparing a museum trip not just with other museums, but with a whole host of possible opportunities from restaurants, parks, cinemas, live events, hobbies, holidays and free things to do locally.

As part of the National Attractions Marketing Conference 2026, Christina Lister, marketing and audience development consultant, trainer, facilitator and author of Marketing Strategy for Museums explored five key audience trends shaping museum marketing now, from rising expectations and shifting digital behaviours to shorter booking windows, risk-averse visitors and the growing need for connection.

The message was clear: audiences are not necessarily less interested in museums, culture or days out. But they are asking harder questions before they commit.

Savvy audiences have higher expectations

Visitors are making more calculated decisions about how they spend their time and money. A museum visit might be competing with a zoo, a cinema trip, a National Trust property, a walk in the park, a library visit, a meal out, a hobby or simply staying at home. That competition is not always fair. Visitors are used to frictionless digital experiences from huge consumer brands, so slow websites, unclear prices, hidden information and awkward booking journeys can quickly become barriers.

One simple but important area is clarity. Research carried out across museum, gallery and heritage websites looking at child, young person and student pricing surprisingly showed a lack of consistency in the definition of a child ticket across the sector, and in some cases the age bracket was not stated at all. For a visitor, that creates doubt. For front-of-house teams, it can create difficult conversations on arrival.

The opportunity for marketers is to make decision-making easier. Clear pricing, obvious opening times, simple booking routes, transparent accessibility information and well-signposted visitor details all matter. Audiences also expect organisations to live their values. It is no longer enough to say that a venue is inclusive, welcoming or community-focused. Visitors increasingly want to see those values reflected in programming, partnerships, leadership, sponsorship decisions and everyday practice.

Digital behaviour is shifting

People are still online, but their relationship with digital platforms is becoming more complicated with growing concern about screen time and information overload – sometimes resulting in what is commonly known as “popcorn brain”, where people find it harder to focus because they are constantly switching between digital stimuli. For marketers this is an important concept because although audiences are seeing more content they may be absorbing less of it. As such key messages need to be repeated, simplified and made memorable.

There is also a strong wellbeing thread running through audience behaviour. People are investing in experiences and activities that support health, rest, connection, mindfulness and time away from screens. Museums and cultural attractions have a real opportunity here. A visit can be positioned not only as educational or entertaining, but as restorative. It can offer time together, time alone, space to think, a reason to walk, a way to reconnect, or a break from digital noise.

What’s important is understanding where your audiences are, what they need and how they want to hear from you.

In a risk-averse climate, reassurance is not a small detail – it’s a conversion tool

Cost of living pressures have made audiences more cautious. Many are still willing to spend on things they see as worthwhile but are being more selective, c considering not only the ticket price, but also travel costs, food, time, effort, likely enjoyment and whether the visit will meet their needs. This is particularly important for families, disabled visitors, people with access needs, older visitors and anyone who needs reassurance before committing to a trip. Marketing can help reduce that sense of risk. That might mean clearer accessibility information, visitor testimonials, wet weather guarantees, flexible ticketing, taster offers, daily drop-in activities or practical content showing exactly what is included in the price.

Value also needs to be communicated clearly. If a family ticket includes a trail, activities, re-entry or extra benefits, say so. If membership pays for itself after a certain number of visits, make that easy to understand. If some members are motivated by savings while others are motivated by supporting the organisation, the messaging should reflect both.

Christina’s examples showed that memberships are not always driven by the same motivations. Families may join because repeat visits save money. Older members may join because they want to support the museum. Both can be satisfied, but they need different messages.

Planning and booking journeys are less predictable

The traditional visitor journey is no longer a neat funnel. Someone might discover an attraction on Reddit, ask ChatGPT for recommendations, see a reel on Instagram, check Google reviews, ask a friend and book tickets from their phone within the same short session. Or they may move between those stages over several weeks or months.

Word of mouth remains hugely powerful. In Christina’s client research, visitors often cited friends, family and local recommendations as key influences. One focus group found that people used an average of ten different channels or platforms to find out what was happening locally. That creates a challenge for attractions. Marketing teams cannot be everywhere all the time, but they do need to understand the mix of touchpoints that shape decisions.

Shorter booking windows are also changing campaign planning. Many visitors are still researching days out in advance, but a significant proportion are booking in the final 48 hours. That makes the last few days before a visit, event or activity especially important.

Attractions need strong late-conversion messaging. That includes urgency, availability, weather-relevant content, reminders that tickets are still on sale and practical reasons to book now.

AI also matters. More people are using AI-generated search summaries and recommendation tools, which means attractions need to think about how their information appears beyond traditional search results. Clear FAQs, structured website content, accurate opening information and helpful itinerary-style content can all support visibility.

The opportunity is to be more flexible. Campaigns should be able to respond to weather, availability, audience behaviour and real-world conditions. The best marketing plans are no longer fixed documents that sit unchanged for months. They are frameworks that allow teams to adapt.

Audiences are yearning for connection and community

The final trend was the growing need for connection. Loneliness, remote working, solo living and the loss of community spaces are all shaping behaviour. For museums, heritage sites and cultural attractions, this creates both a responsibility and an opportunity. People are not only looking for things to see – they are looking for places to belong.

Spending time with friends and family remains one of the biggest motivations for visiting museums and galleries. At the same time, there is growing interest in solo visiting, low-pressure social formats, community events, fandoms, niche interests and membership communities. Attractions can respond by creating more ways for people to connect.

Even simple website content can help. A solo visit itinerary, a friendly FAQ or social content showing someone enjoying a museum alone can reassure people who might otherwise feel uncertain.

Organisations should lean into their niche rather than striving to be everything to everyone. Sometimes the strongest connections come from specific interests, communities and partnerships.

Memberships should also be viewed through this lens. Savings and priority access matter, but belonging is a powerful motivator too. Members may want deeper content, more connection with each other and a stronger sense of being part of something.

The questions visitors are asking

Across all five trends, Christina returned to two questions sitting in the minds of audiences: Is this for me? and Will it be worth it?

Those questions should sit at the heart of museum marketing. A visitor wants to know whether they will feel welcome, whether the experience suits their needs, whether the price feels justified, whether the booking process is easy, whether there is enough to do, whether their children will enjoy it, whether they can come alone, whether access needs will be met, whether they can trust the organisation and whether the visit will deliver what the marketing promises.

The role of marketing is not just to promote. It is to answer those questions clearly, honestly and repeatedly.

The real opportunity: rethink the default

One of the strongest challenges from the session was to stop simply repeating last year’s plan. Audiences are not behaving in exactly the same way they did before the pandemic. They are more selective, more digitally complex, more value-conscious and more alert to whether organisations understand them.

That means attractions need to ask better questions.

• What if we made our pricing clearer?
• What if we designed campaigns around the final 72 hours before a visit?
• What if we created content for solo visitors?
• What if we treated wellbeing as a core visitor motivation?
• What if we refreshed our membership messaging for different audience segments?
• What if we stopped using channels simply because we always have?

For museums and cultural attractions, the challenge is real. But so is the opportunity.

The organisations that succeed will be those that reduce friction, build trust, communicate value clearly, adapt quickly and create experiences that help visitors feel that this is for them, and that it will be worth it.

To watch Christina’s presentation in full get your On Demand Tickets from Zoom

Content teams in visitor attractions are being asked to do more than ever

A single campaign now needs to work across multiple platforms, each with their own format, behaviours and expectations. At the same time, many attraction marketing teams are small, juggling brand, social, content, CRM, PR, partnerships and sales support all at once.

That was the challenge explored by Danielle Nicholls, Senior Content Manager at Merlin Entertainments, in her National Attractions Marketing Conference session, where she shared a practical framework for getting more value from content without simply demanding more ideas, more shoots and more budget. The central message…the answer is not always to create more. It is to make one strong idea work harder.

The problem: too much content, not enough resource

One of the biggest pressures facing attractions is the expectation to be everywhere. Marketing teams need campaign assets, social content, web updates, email creative, video, reels, stories, paid ads, press imagery, behind-the-scenes material and reactive content. But each platform needs something slightly different. This creates a familiar problem: everything feels urgent, but not everything deserves the same focus. Attractions therefore need to think more deliberately about the relationship between “hero” and “halo” content.

Hero content is the big idea – the campaign centrepiece, the main film, the brand platform, the launch moment or the creative concept everything else comes from. Halo content is what scales that idea. It is the set of supporting assets, cutdowns, platform-native edits, behind-the-scenes clips, creator moments, UGC, trailers, social-first posts, PR angles and paid media variations that help the campaign reach more people, more often, in more relevant ways.

A strong hero idea should naturally create halo opportunities

A strong hero idea should be clear enough to generate multiple halo opportunities. If it doesn’t, the problem may not be distribution. It may be the idea itself.

A good hero concept gives the team something to build from. It creates language, characters, moments, stories, reactions and formats that can be adapted across channels. It gives everyone a shared creative direction, rather than forcing the team to invent fresh ideas for every post, platform and asset. This matters because halo content is not just “cutting bits off” the main film, it’s about planning the full content ecosystem from the start.

That means asking questions such as:

• What are the social-first moments?
• What can be captured behind the scenes?
• Which creators, staff members or guests can bring the idea to life?
• What will work as a teaser?
• What will work as a reaction clip?
• What will work for press, CRM, web, paid media and short-form video?
• Which assets need to be native to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or another platform?

The more of this that is planned before the shoot, the more efficient the campaign becomes.

Case study one: Alton Towers and Dare or Scare

One of the clearest examples came from Alton Towers’ Dare or Scare content for Scarefest.

The hero content was a YouTube mini-series built around creators and well-known personalities taking on challenges inside Alton Towers’ scare attractions. The team worked with six people, including TikTok creators and recognisable entertainment talent, and created three long-form episodes of around 10 to 15 minutes each. That could have been the end of the campaign: three strong YouTube videos promoting Scarefest. Instead, the team planned the halo content around the hero idea creating short trailers to tease each episode, pulling out the strongest reactions from the scare mazes and using creator-led moments that already had built-in audience recognition. In one example, a TikTok creator was asked to perform one of her known formats while going through the scare experience. That small planned moment became a highly successful TikTok clip because it was native to the platform and familiar to her audience.

Case study two: The London Eye at 25

The second example came from the London Eye’s 25th anniversary activity.

The hero asset was a longer-form brand film celebrating 25 years of the London Eye bringing together interviews, archive footage and the cultural significance of one of London’s most recognisable landmarks.

A campaign like this requires significant effort. But the value came from making sure the film was not treated as a single finished asset. Instead, it became the centre of a wider content ecosystem. The team captured behind-the-scenes footage during the shoot showing the importance of having someone from the social team present whenever possible, even if the main shoot is for brand, TV, PR or another purpose. A person with an iPhone, thinking like a social producer, can capture moments that would otherwise be missed. Those moments can become some of the most useful halo content.

The campaign also included social content around birthday celebrations, guest stories and a “my London Eye” idea that encouraged people to share their own connection to the attraction. This created opportunities for user-generated content, which added authenticity and helped the campaign feel more personal. The out-of-home activity also drew from the same anniversary platform, using iconic images and moments associated with the London Eye, from fireworks to views across London. The result was a campaign where the hero film carried the main message, but the halo content extended the story across multiple touchpoints.

Case study three: LEGOLAND and a global creative platform

The third example focused on LEGOLAND.

Here, the hero content was an emotion-led TV advert that did more than promote an attraction. It created a flexible brand platform. The advert used the idea of “In my LEGOLAND”, allowing children to describe the world they imagine and experience. That language gave local teams and global teams a creative toolkit they could adapt across different markets and channels.

This is where hero content becomes especially powerful. It is not just one advert. It becomes a creative engine. The idea can support social content, staff and character-led content, local market adaptations, attraction-specific messaging and campaign extensions. It gives teams a consistent platform, while still allowing flexibility.

For attractions with multiple sites, seasonal events or different audience segments, this kind of approach is especially useful. The core idea remains consistent, but the halo content can flex around location, audience, channel and objective.

Halo content should scale the hero, not sit separately from it

The three case studies all showed how halo content exists to scale the hero. It shouldn’t feel disconnected from the main campaign, be created only after the hero asset is finished and shouldn’t repeat the same message in slightly different sizes.

Good halo content continues the work of the hero campaign. It increases reach, frequency and relevance and gives audiences more ways into the idea, in turn making the campaign feel alive across different platforms.

That means each halo asset needs a job. Some content might entertain, explain, reassure, drive bookings, build anticipation, or help people understand what the experience actually feels like. This is particularly important for visitor attractions because people are not only buying a ticket. They are making a decision about time, money, travel, family expectations and whether the experience will be worth it.

Content has to do more than show that the attraction exists. It has to help people imagine themselves there.

Platform-native content matters

Halo content needs to be native to the platform. A TikTok trend should live on TikTok if that is where it makes sense. A YouTube trailer may need a different structure. Instagram may need a different visual rhythm. Press may need stills and clear story angles. Paid social may need sharper hooks and more direct messaging. This doesn’t mean creating a completely new idea for every channel. It means adapting the same idea intelligently.

The hero gives the campaign consistency. The halo gives it flexibility. That distinction is important. Repurposing content badly can make a campaign feel repetitive. Repurposing it well makes it feel bigger, more useful and more relevant. Halo content works best when it feels additive, not repetitive.

Capture more while you are already there

For smaller attraction teams, one of the most useful pieces of advice was also one of the simplest: capture more while you’re already on the shoot.

If a team is already filming a hero asset, launching a product, hosting talent, running an event or creating a campaign moment, there is usually far more content available than the final polished asset will show. This does not necessarily require another production budget. It requires planning, awareness and someone thinking about the wider ecosystem while the main asset is being created.

For attractions under pressure to produce more, this is where the hero-to-halo approach becomes especially valuable by helping teams to make better use of the moments they already have.

The real takeaway: more exposure to the right idea

Success does not always come from having more ideas. Sometimes it comes from giving the right idea more exposure.

Rather than trying to fill every content calendar with something completely new, attractions should focus on building stronger campaign ecosystems:

• Start with one clear hero concept
• Plan the halo content at the same time
• Capture assets with different channels in mind
• Make each format native to the platform
• Use creators, staff, guests and behind-the-scenes moments to add authenticity
• Then let the same idea work harder across the full campaign.

For visitor attractions, this is a practical way to deal with the reality of modern content demands.

The strongest campaigns are not necessarily the ones with the biggest production budgets or the most individual assets. They are the ones with a clear idea at the centre, a plan for how that idea will travel, and enough flexibility to make it relevant wherever audiences encounter it. In a sector where teams are often short on time, resource and budget, that is a powerful shift.

To watch Danielle’s presentation in full get your On Demand Tickets from Zoom

Why attraction marketers need better reporting cultures, not just better dashboards

For visitor attraction marketers, proving the value of marketing has never been simple. Ticket sales, footfall, admissions income, online engagement, brand awareness, visitor sentiment, school holiday demand, weather, price sensitivity and local competition all interact in ways that are difficult to separate.

According to a survey of attraction marketers by Nik Wyness, Director of Marketing and Engagement at The Tank Museum, marketing teams are not avoiding accountability, but many are being asked to prove impact through reporting systems that do not fully reflect how attraction marketing actually works.

Pressure to prove ROI is increasing

One of the clearest findings was that accountability expectations have risen sharply. According to Nik’s survey, 85% of respondents said they were under more pressure to demonstrate ROI than two or three years ago.

That pressure is not happening in isolation. Half of respondents reported decreased visitor footfall over the last two to three years, while 30% said footfall had stayed broadly the same. Budgets are also tight: around 30% reported reduced marketing budgets and a further 37% said budgets were static. Once inflation is considered, even flat budgets can feel like cuts.

In practical terms, many teams are being asked to deliver more impact with fewer resources, in a market where demand is harder to predict.

Attraction marketing is a complex environment

A central theme of the session was that visitor attraction marketing is not a clean, controllable environment. Unlike some ecommerce businesses, attractions cannot simply scale spend and expect a neat, proportional increase in revenue.

A campaign might be well planned, well targeted and well executed, but still be affected by weather, transport disruption, school holiday timing, economic confidence, local competition or changes in visitor behaviour. That makes attribution difficult. It does not mean marketers are making poor decisions. It means they are operating in a complex market where precise cause and effect is often impossible to prove.

Reporting is focused on what travels upwards

The survey found that reporting is heavily anchored to bottom-line outcomes. That is understandable: senior teams and boards need to understand revenue, admissions, sales and return on spend. But those figures do not tell the whole story.

Revenue metrics, engagement metrics and performance marketing metrics dominate because they are specific, measurable and easy to put into a dashboard. Nik highlighted that 63% of respondents use some form of KPI dashboard, while 53% admitted they are mainly reporting the things that are easiest to measure.

The danger is that the things that are easiest to measure become the things that are most valued. Brand awareness, emotional connection, reputation, audience trust, relevance and long-term demand generation all matter, but they are harder to attribute and harder to defend in a monthly report.

Only part of marketing spend is truly attributable

One of the most striking findings was that respondents could attribute, on average, only 43% of their marketing spend to measurable outcomes. That does not mean the remaining activity is wasted. It means marketers can only confidently connect part of their work to specific results.

Digital platforms have encouraged teams to expect detailed attribution, with dashboards full of clicks, impressions, conversions, cost-per-click and return on ad spend. But those dashboards often reward short-term, trackable activity and can underplay the impact of brand, PR, organic social, partnerships, offline media and word of mouth.

Attraction marketers understand this. The issue is that the available tools provide only a partial picture, while reporting expectations often demand certainty.

What gets scrutinised gets prioritised

]If leadership teams focus most heavily on easy-to-measure numbers, marketing teams will naturally spend more time optimising for those numbers. The survey suggested this is already happening: 60% said accountability pressure had changed how they plan, prioritise, defend and report on marketing, and 60% agreed that the need for accountability makes trying new things more difficult.

That should concern senior leaders. Marketing needs accountability, but it also needs space to test, learn and innovate. If every activity has to be justified through immediate, measurable returns, attractions risk reducing investment in the work that builds future demand.

Brand-building is at risk

The survey also pointed to a worrying tension around long-term brand-building. Forty-three per cent of respondents said they had reduced spend on long-term brand activity, while 38% had kept investment broadly the same.

Visitors do not always decide to book after one advert or one search. Their decision may be shaped over months or years through repeated exposure, emotional connection, reputation, recommendation and relevance. If long-term activity is reduced because it is harder to report, future demand may suffer.

Better reporting culture matters more than perfect attribution

When respondents were asked what would improve reporting, the answer was not simply better attribution. Many wanted better reporting cultures: more recognition that not all marketing activity has an immediate payoff, broader definitions of success, more understanding from senior stakeholders and more time to analyse data properly.

That means asking better questions. What are we trying to achieve? Which activity is designed to drive short-term sales? Which activity is building future demand? What do we know, what can we infer and what can we not prove but still need to value?

Marketing should be seen as value creation

Marketing is about making the product relevant to the target audience. For visitor attractions, that connects directly to income, visitor numbers, public benefit, charitable objectives, community relevance and long-term sustainability.

Yet in some organisations, marketing is still viewed primarily as a cost to be controlled rather than a source of value creation. If senior teams want marketing to contribute strategically, marketing needs access to data, time for insight, permission to test and a reporting culture that understands the difference between measurable activity and valuable activity.

The real challenge: measure more meaningfully

Attractions should still track revenue, bookings, campaign performance, engagement, conversion rates and return on spend. Those metrics matter.

But they should not be the only way marketing is judged. Attractions also need to understand awareness, reputation, emotional resonance, audience relevance, content performance, community growth, search behaviour, visitor motivations and the long-term impact of brand activity.

While the survey was not scientific and did not represent every attraction, it did reveal a sector wrestling seriously with difficult questions. Marketers are under pressure to do more with less, in a market shaped by complex and often uncontrollable factors, while being expected to prove ROI through systems that only capture part of the story.

The challenge now is for attractions to build reporting cultures that reflect how marketing really creates value: sometimes immediately, sometimes over time, sometimes directly, and sometimes in ways that are harder to measure but no less essential.

To watch Nik’s presentation in full get your On Demand Tickets from Zoom

One well-timed marketing idea can move thousands of visitors. The National Attractions Marketing Conference 2026 is built to hand you a day’s worth of them — online, this Wednesday, 3 June.

The programme is aimed squarely at what’s shifting attraction bookings right now:

• Why your digital ads might be underperforming – and how to fix them (Liz Dimes, Agility)
• Halo vs Hero content that actually earns attention (Danielle Nicholls, Merlin)
• Evolving your website instead of an expensive rebuild (Neil Lewin, Semantic)
• Getting real value from your DMO relationship (Laura Baxter, Visit Isle of Wight)
• Measuring what matters – proving marketing ROI in 2026 (Nik Wyness, The Tank Museum)

Keynotes from Bernard Donoghue (ALVA) and Simon Jones (Navigate), hosted by Kelly Molson, plus seminars and interactive table talks. All on Zoom – nobody loses a travel day.

For the price of a ticket, your team walks away with tactics they can apply the same week.

Help James and get a free sustainability audit

James Hobbs, CTO of Aer Studios, is talking about the importance of Digital Sustainability at the conference on Wednesday, and he is looking for a volunteer who would be willing to have their site audited on the day in his seminar.

If you’re willing to get stuck in with his seminar, then send me a quick email and I’ll put you in touch paul@wearestq.com.