Destination Roadmapping

The festival ends at five. Your visitors might still be deciding where to eat.

When the music stops and vendors start packing up, does the visit continue or do people head somewhere else for dinner?

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky Soderberg explores what happens after the festival closes, why a good crowd doesn’t automatically mean more business around town, and how existing restaurants, shops, and experiences could give visitors a reason to stay longer.

Before your committee volunteers to organize an after-party, consider what’s already available and whether visitors know...

Your town is friendly. But does someone who’s never been there feel it?

Being welcoming to people you know and helping a visitor feel comfortable are different things. A shop where nobody looks up, directions that require local knowledge, or a tradition newcomers don’t know how to join can leave visitors feeling overlooked, even when everyone means well.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky explores the everyday interactions that shape a visitor’s sense of welcome, why good intentions don’t always translate into a good experience, and one question that can help you...

A new streetscape will bring more visitors. A bigger festival will generate overnight stays. A new attraction will increase local spending.

Maybe. But what makes you so sure?

Communities often approve tourism, downtown, and event investments based on expected outcomes that no one has seriously examined. And then, somewhere between the first enthusiastic meeting and the final funding decision, assumptions start sounding like facts.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky Soderberg explores why a successfully completed project doesn't necessarily deliver the economic results used to justify it, what happens when expectations don't...

Are you creating solutions or just making the symptom look better?

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky looks at what happens when short-term fixes quietly become long-term strategies. A program, event, or initiative may improve the numbers without actually accomplishing the change you targeted. 

Before you keep funding something because “we’ve always done it,” ask a better question: What did this actually change?

Because sometimes what looks like a solution is just a very well-funded bandage.

Thanks for listening!

Look for new episodes each Wednesday wherever you get you...

Sometimes a good project doesn’t fail because it was a bad idea. It fails because the conditions it needed were never put in place.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky looks at the gap between what communities build, fund, or launch and the results they expect those investments to produce.

From trails and downtown improvements to events and visitor experiences, the real problem may be less about the project itself and more about the pieces around it that were never connected.

Before you scrap the idea, add another project, or spend mo...

Small towns rarely suffer from a shortage of ideas.

The problem is what happens when every new idea gets added to the pile and almost nothing ever comes off.

In this episode, Vicky talks about why “good idea” does not automatically mean “do it now,” how communities end up buried under their own enthusiasm, and why real prioritization requires being willing to say, “Not now.”

Because adding is easy. Choosing is the work.

Thanks for listening!

Look for new episodes each Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and in the meantime...

Do you have any idea what tourism success could look like in your community five years from now?

Far too often, we measure progress by what we started, what we built, what we promoted, or funded. Unfortunately, activity does not always guarantee results. 

In this episode, Vicky encourages communities and tourism leaders to think beyond their wish list and ask the tougher question: What will change for visitors, businesses, and residents?

Because 5 years is way too long to work hard without knowing if you actually made it anywhere.

Thanks for listening!

What if your tourism champion walks out the door? Vicky tackles the silent risk lurking behind over-dependence on one champion in this episode of Destination Roadmapping. She addresses lost relationships, undocumented history, shaky partnerships, and stalled initiatives to reveal how a strong individual can mask an inherently weak system and what communities should know before that knowledge leaves with them. 

Thanks for listening!

Look for new episodes each Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and in the meantime...

Connect with Vicky on LinkedIn

Does your event actually justify a hotel stay or are you simply wishing attendees will transform a completely feasible day trip into an overnight excursion?

On this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky explains exactly what compels visitors to stay overnight, including robust evening programming and Sunday activities, hotel information, and weekend itineraries that encourage guests to experience more than just your event.

If overnight hotel stays are part of your economic impact strategy, you need to motivate visitors to stay AND offer them something worth waking up for.

Thanks for listening!

...

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, we’re putting a few tourism sacred cows on trial.

Just because a historic site, museum, monument, or local landmark has appeared in every brochure for twenty years does not mean visitors still see it as a must-see.

We’ll look at how to separate community importance from actual visitor appeal, what visitor behavior can tell you, and how to decide whether an attraction needs stronger interpretation, less promotion, or a different role altogether.

Plus, you’ll get a simple four-question test to use on every...

What do the things that we celebrate say about who we are as a country? 

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky explores national holidays, whether they’re days of independence, memorial days, or commemorations of service, civil rights, labor, history, or identity. She then challenges communities to consider how and why they engage with them. 

Why do some holidays evolve into big community events, while others are virtually nonexistent on the local calendar? What do those decisions say about a community’s values, history, and evolving identity? 

It’s not about add...

Choosing business hours should involve more than asking, “What works for us?”

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky looks at how shops, museums, attractions, visitor centers, and downtown businesses can choose hours based on actual customer behavior—not habit, convenience, or generic advice.

Using West Yellowstone as an example, she explains why even a town with millions of visitors can miss opportunities when businesses are closed during peak visitor activity. You’ll learn how to review customer patterns, identify gaps in the visitor’s day, coordinate hours with neighboring businesses, use seasonal schedules, and test chang...

What happens when your town shares a name with another destination and visitors find the wrong hotels, events, attractions, or even the wrong state?

In Episode 52, Vicky looks at the very believable myth of travelers arriving in Austria when they intended to visit Australia, then brings the problem closer to home. From Huntsville and Springfield to Salem, Madison, Columbus, and Washington, shared place names can create real confusion online.

You’ll learn how to make your destination easier to find and harder to confuse by consistently using your full location, connecting your name to a sp...

Being historic can be one of a community’s greatest tourism assets, or it can be a very comfortable excuse for offering visitors remarkably little to do.

In this episode, Vicky explores the difference between documenting history and creating an experience. You’ll learn how to move beyond dates, plaques, and attractive old buildings by focusing on people, choices, consequences, and the ways the past still shapes your community today.

Success is not simply teaching visitors your history. Success is helping them find themselves somewhere inside it and giving them a story they will carry home...

In Episode 50 of Destination Roadmapping, we’re talking about the small details, honest experiences, and unexpected moments that make visitors remember a community long after they leave. Because memorable places usually aren’t trying to be everything to everyone. They know what they do well, they make it easy to enjoy, and they give people something worth talking about later.

And to celebrate Episode 50, we’re kicking off a giveaway.

Enter for a chance to win the grand prize: a 1-hour Destination Roadmapping Strategy Session. Five additional winners will receive a goody box and everyone who en...

How many opportunities has your organization lost because nobody answered an email?

You'll probably never know.

A sponsor looking for partnership information. A vendor asking about booth space. A volunteer ready to help. A performer hoping to be part of your event. They reached out because they wanted to work with your organization—and then, silence.

In this episode, Vicky explores why unanswered emails are more than an administrative headache. They're missed opportunities that can quietly affect sponsorships, vendor recruitment, volunteer engagement, and your community's reputation.

You'll learn five simple ways to...

What if the problem isn't that you need more vendors?

What if you already have too many?

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky challenges one of the most common assumptions in event planning: Bigger is always better. More vendors may sound impressive, but if attendance and spending aren't keeping pace, you could be creating a tougher environment for both vendors and visitors.

Learn how to recognize the warning signs that your vendor marketplace has outgrown your audience, why vendor success is a better metric than vendor count, and five practical ways to...

Many community organizations have a phrase they rely on when resources get tight:

"We'll figure it out."

At first, it sounds admirable. Resourceful. Resilient.

But what happens when "we'll figure it out" stops being an occasional response to unexpected challenges and becomes the way your organization operates every single day?

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky explores The Capacity Mirage, the illusion that everything is fine simply because the work keeps getting done. However, behind the scenes, organizations are being held together by a handful of...

Getting someone to visit once is great.

Getting them to come back is where the real magic (and sustainability) happens.

This week, Vicky dives into The Return Visit Formula: seven practical strategies for turning one-time visitors into repeat guests. Learn how to build experiences that aren't easy to finish in one visit, market your destination through the seasons, create collections and trails that inspire return trips, and leverage the small-town advantage of making people feel known.

If you've ever wondered why some communities develop fiercely loyal visitors while others struggle to...

Sometimes the most exasperating phrase in tourism, events, and community development is:

“We tried that already.”

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky explores why communities often abandon potentially good ideas because a similar version failed once before. Over time, complicated situations get reduced to simple conclusions:

But are those actually facts or just stories that have been repeated long enough to become accepted as truth?

You'll learn how communities develop orga...

Every successful event eventually faces the same dangerous question:

“What should we add next year?”

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky dives into the Expectation Escalation Problem, when communities stop focusing on creating a great experience and start chasing bigger, busier, and more complicated.

From overcrowded layouts and volunteer burnout to events losing their identity entirely, this episode explores why growth is not always improvement and why some festivals quietly collapse under the weight of their own success.

Importantly, Vicky doesn't just identify the problem she breaks down practical ways comm...

Some communities spend years trying to turn downtown into the star attraction while visitors are actually coming for the lake, the sports complex, the trails, the rodeo, or the hospital

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky Soderberg digs into one of the hardest truths in tourism strategy: just because downtown matters emotionally to residents doesn’t mean it’s what drives visitor behavior.

This episode explores:

Some communities are building tourism experiences for visitors they WISH they had instead of the visitors already showing up.

And that disconnect creates problems fast.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, we’re unpacking what happens when tourism planning becomes too aspirational:

Because visitor behavior tells the truth.

If your destination struggles with short stays, low exploration, weak downtown engagement, or visitors...

What makes visitors stay longer in a community?

It may not be your attractions, your branding, or your event calendar.

It might be something much simpler: Shade. Seating. Snacks.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, Vicky breaks down one of the most overlooked parts of visitor experience design, the comfort needs that quietly determine whether people linger, explore, spend money, or leave.

Because visitors don’t only leave when they’re finished. They often leave because they’re hot, tired, and hungry.

This episode explores:

If your vendors are complaining about low traffic, but your event felt busy, you don’t have an attendance problem.

You have a layout problem.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, we’re digging into The Booth Maze. The all-too-common setup where attendees walk your event and somehow miss half your vendors.

Not because they didn’t want to see them.
Because your layout made it easy to miss them.

We break down:

Are people visiting your town or just passing through it?

Many communities see constant traffic and assume that means tourism is healthy. Cars are moving. Gas stations are busy. Drive-thrus stay packed.

But pass-through traffic and visitor engagement are not the same thing.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, we’re unpacking the difference between being on the route and being part of the trip, and why so many communities mistake convenience stops for tourism success.

We cover:

What if the thing you think makes your event “family-friendly" is actually holding it back?

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, we’re challenging one of the most automatic decisions in event planning: The Kids Zone.

Most events have one.
 Most planners feel like they should.

But what if removing it actually improves the experience for families, vendors, and your overall event flow?

This episode breaks down:

Some of the best experiences in your community might be the hardest for visitors to step into.

Not because they’re bad.
 Because they’re built on familiarity.

In this episode, we’re unpacking the “locals only” vibe. The feeling visitors get when everything works, as long as they already know how it works.

And here’s the twist:
 That local feel? It’s not the problem.

It’s actually what people want.

The problem is when visitors can see it, but can’t step into it.

We break down:<...

We’ve all experienced it.

The meeting ends. Everyone nods. “Great discussion.” Chairs slide back.

And then the real conversation starts, in the hallway, in the parking lot.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, we’re unpacking “the meeting after the meeting," why it happens, what it signals about your team dynamics, and how it quietly undermines your tourism plans and events.

Because when people don’t feel comfortable speaking in the room, the meeting becomes a performance instead of a working session.

And that’s where things start to break.

Tourism seasons rarely unfold exactly the way we expect. Gas prices shift, travel habits change, weather refuses to cooperate, and sometimes a random 12-second video sends visitors somewhere you never saw coming.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, we revisit the idea from Episode 20, the “What If” plan for events and apply it to an entire tourism season. Because just like events, destinations need to be ready for the unexpected.

We’ll explore several forces that could shape the 2026 tourism season, including travel price fatigue, shrinking travel radiuses, the “cute downtown” plateau, a...

Most small-town events are incredibly organized.

But they’re organized for the committee, not the crowd.

If your layout makes sense to the board but confuses first-timers
 If vendors are placed based on history instead of flow
 If guests need a volunteer just to figure out where to start

You may have designed an insider event.

In this episode, we break down:

If someone pulled into your town at 3:00 p.m. on a Friday, no wedding, no meeting, no relatives to visit, would they stay 24 hours?

Or would they quietly keep driving?

In this episode, we’re walking through a simple but revealing diagnostic: the 24-Hour Visitor Test. Because there’s a difference between attracting visitors and structuring your community to hold them overnight and that difference is where the real economic impact lives.

We’ll unpack:

• The arrival friction that silently shortens stays
 • Why “having one thing” isn’t enough
 • The Saturday afterno...

Ever leave a meeting uncertain if anything actually got decided?

You’re not alone.

In small towns, meetings are where vision, risk, nostalgia, and practicality all collide, and without clear purpose and defined roles, they spin. Same conversation. Different month.

In this episode, we break down:
 • Why looping meetings are actually unclear expectations
 • How role confusion quietly fuels conflict
 • The one shared agreement that can shift everything
 • A simple 3-step reset you can use at your very next meeting

If your board meetings feel repetitive, your committees feel stuck, or...

Not every struggling event crashes.

Some just quietly fade away.

Attendance dips slightly.
 Sponsors still sign, but ask more questions.
 Volunteers respond a little slower.
 Energy feels softer.

Nothing breaks badly enough to force a decision.
 So it stays on the calendar.

In this episode, we unpack the difference between a failing event and a fading one, and why fading is actually more dangerous.

You’ll learn:

Your town isn’t falling behind.
 It’s overwhelmed.

In this episode, we unpack a truth most small-town leaders quietly carry but rarely say out loud: overwhelm is not a failure of effort, it’s a failure of clarity.

When the same handful of people are carrying the operational load, the emotional load, and the political load all at once, it’s no wonder progress feels slippery. The problem isn’t that your town isn’t doing enough. It’s that it’s trying to do everything.

We’ll talk about what overwhelm actually...

When something goes sideways at an event (and it always will) why does everyone freeze?

A line backs up. A performer is late. A guest asks a simple question. Staff look at volunteers. Volunteers look at staff. Someone says, “Let me check with…,” and five minutes later the problem is still standing there, arms crossed.

In this episode, Vicky digs into the real reason staff and volunteers hesitate to solve problems in real time. It’s not apathy. It’s not lack of initiative. It’s a system that quietly trained them to wait.

You’ll hea...

Vendors make a decision about your event long before the last attendee leaves and it quietly determines your event’s quality, revenue, and reputation.

In this episode, we unpack the vendor experience nobody talks about: load-in chaos, unclear communication, uneven enforcement, poor sales flow, and the tiny frictions that add up to “never again.” Vendors rarely complain. They just stop coming back. When they do, your event feels it. Thinner lineups, lower-quality offerings, and less energy on the ground.

This is an extremely practical episode about how vendors actually evaluate events, what makes them return year a...

“We don’t have the budget.”

It’s one of the most common phrases in community planning.

In this episode, I unpack The Budget Mirage: the idea that a lack of money is usually standing in for something else, unclear priorities, fuzzy outcomes, or discomfort making a visible choice.

This conversation isn’t about finding more funding.
 It’s about spending with intention.

We’ll talk about why money feels scarce when priorities aren’t clear, how vague goals make every dollar feel risky, and why “playing it safe” often guarant...

Every event ends with a crash. Not the bad kind, the adrenaline kind.

When the last guest leaves and the radios go quiet, there’s a letdown that most teams rush past or ignore. In this episode, Vicky breaks down the post-event hangover as a real, predictable phase, one that starts with adrenaline dropping and evolves into clarity, reflection, and smarter decisions.

You’ll learn how to recognize the hangover for what it is, why timing matters when it comes to debriefs, and how to preserve what worked while fixing friction before memory smooths everything into...

January has a reputation problem.

Too many destinations treat January like a dead zone: quiet, unimportant, or something to simply get through until spring. But that thinking quietly undermines momentum for the rest of the year.

In this episode of Destination Roadmapping, we unpack the most common January tourism myths, from “no one travels in January” to “nothing we do now really matters”—and explain why they’re holding communities back.

You’ll learn: