Destination marketing organization

A destination marketing organization (DMO) is an organisation which promotes a location as an attractive travel destination. DMOs are known as tourist boards, tourism authorities or "Convention and Visitors Bureaus". They primarily exist to provide information to leisure travelers. Additionally, where a suitable infrastructure exists, they encourage event organizers to choose their location for meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions, collectively abbreviated as MICE.

DMOs are generally tied to the local government infrastructure, often with supporting funds being generated by specific taxes, such as hotel taxes, membership fees, and sometimes government subsidies. However, in many cases, the observed decline in tourism following cutbacks to public-sector expenditures has motivated the tourism industry to create a private sector coalition in order to provide the functions of a DMO.

With the arrival of the internet more and more Destination Management Companies adopted the term "visit" and added it as a prefix to their city or country name. The phenomenon started in America in 1995 / 1996 and spread over the world with major organizations like the London Tourist Board adopting the concept after the turn of the century.

With the primary goal of Destination Marketing Organizations being the marketing of tourism destinations it is important to acknowledge the importance of tourism for destinations. Some of the positive effects of tourism on a local economy include provision of a reason for local governments to improve local infrastructure, an influx of revenue from outside of the local economy, and an increase in jobs within the local economy.