In New York, we do have one of the oldest Matching Funds programs around. Unfortunately, the 6 million allocated has not grown since the program was established. Tourism promotion is the greatest generator of economic return for a destination. There is no greater and faster return on investment. That said, it would be great to have a greater role of the govt in promoting tourism. The other end of the stick – why should the govt assist/subsidize one industry over another? I have a mixed feeling about this. When I worked in the private sector, I never placed any value on govt/local/state/national efforts in tourism promotion. Often I felt it was a waste of money and time to even deal with them. Now that I’m working in destination promotion, I feel what we are doing is largely a thankless job.

It’s quite possible that with the 2.0 movement destination promotion may largely move from the DMO to the travel community. I see our future role as information aggregators rather than traditional marketers.