Tourism's Ultimate Power Couple: DMOs + Attractions
The strongest destinations have one thing in common: DMOs and attractions working together. Discover 3 ways to build stronger partnerships for the benefit of all.
Written By - Keri Hanson
July 2026
Attractions are the heart of the travel experience. They're the reason people pack bags, book flights, and often choose one destination over another. Whether it's a world-famous museum, a family-favorite theme park, or a local hidden gem, attractions transform a place into an experience.
But here's the challenge: DMOs are often focused on growing visitation and hotel revenue across the destination, while attractions are focused on filling their own gates. That can create an imbalance where the destination appears to be thriving, but individual attractions aren't seeing the same success.
The reality? A destination only truly succeeds when everyone in its tourism ecosystem succeeds. That's why the strongest destinations don't just market alongside their attractions… they partner with them.
What DMOs Can Do For Attractions
- Share the Data Advantage
- Help Uncover Shared Opportunities
- Empower Them to Use Data on Their Own
Share the data advantage
Most attractions need visitor insights just as much as DMOs do, but many don't have the resources to access them. By sharing information like visitor behavior, top origin markets, and seasonal trends, DMOs can help attractions better understand who's coming and where the next opportunities are.
An easy example? A DMO notices and shares that visitation from a new fly market is growing. That's valuable insight an attraction can use to create targeted promotions or experiences for that audience.
Help uncover shared opportunities
Attractions don't just want to understand their own visitors; they want to understand how they fit into the larger destination.
How many visitors to the Philadelphia Museum of Art also visit the Adventure Aquarium across the river in Camden? If there's significant overlap, that's an opportunity for a co-branded promotion or joint marketing campaign that benefits both organizations.
Empower them to use data on their own
Sharing data is only part of the equation. The goal is to help attractions become confident, data-driven partners.
That might mean hosting workshops, sharing quarterly insights, or giving attractions access to tools that make visitor data easy to understand and act on. When attractions have the confidence to use data themselves, everyone wins.
What Attractions Can Do to Support DMOs
- Share What You Know About Your Visitors
- Tell the Story of the Destination
- Turn Attraction Visitors into Destination Visitors
Share what you know about your visitors
Attractions have a front-row seat to the traveler experience. They know who's visiting, when they're coming, and often how they're exploring the destination.
Those insights can help DMOs uncover new opportunities. Maybe hotel bookings are growing from the Dallas market, but attraction visitation is surging from Chicago. Sharing that information could reshape a destination's marketing strategy and uncover an entirely new growth market.
Tell the story of the destination
Think about how many trips start with the Santa Monica Pier. That’s often the hook - but it doesn’t have to be the whole story. By working together, the attraction and the DMO can turn a visit to the Pier into a full destination experience through shared itineraries, neighborhood recommendations, and co-branded content that encourages visitors to explore more of Santa Monica.
Turn attraction visitors into destination visitors
For many travelers, an attraction is the reason the trip begins. But once they're there, they don't just visit the attraction - they stay in hotels, eat at local restaurants, shop downtown, and explore the community.
By working with their DMO, attractions can encourage visitors to experience more of the destination, extending trips, increasing local spending, and demonstrating the value they bring to the entire tourism economy.
A final thought
DMOs and attractions aren’t competing for the same visitor. They’re shaping the same trip.
When they work together, they can give travelers more reasons to stay longer, explore more, and come back again.
Better together isn’t just a nice idea…. It’s how stronger destinations are built.
