Four Reasons I’ll be attending Marketing Outlook Forum in October

by Jennifer Griswold, Research and Analytics Manager, Wyoming Office of Tourism

The Marketing Outlook Forum is my number one conference for the year. Matching marketing and research in the tourism world is a researcher’s fantasy come to life. MOF is the place the magic occurs between great ideas and great results. Between the brilliant people that attend, the actionable forecasts and outlooks, new tools and trends available and how destinations are leveraging them you can get almost everything you need to plan the upcoming year. Below are my top four reasons to attend MOF.

Reason #1: Networking

Of course networking is the number one reason for attending any conference. Having that face-to-face time with your peers and the people you engage with and respect is imperative to making connections, building trust and credibility and learning new ideas. At MOF, there are several times to network as ask thought leaders questions on what they would do in your shoes. You can attend the destination breakfast and roundtable where there is an open Q&A forum where you can ask questions of a room full of researchers. Half the sessions at the conference are roundtable format, so you can exchange ideas with peers during sessions and breaks.

Reason #2: International Market Outlook

No where else can you get NTTO, U.S. Travel and researchers from almost every state together talking about international travel markets. This is the best opportunity for learning the latest international developments and how it will impact the visitor economy for your state, your city and your nation. Forecasting, currency valuation, and current events all go into the next year’s market update.

Reason #3: New Marketing Tools

Something special about MOF is the opportunity for marketers and researchers to learn about new tools available in marketing, product developments and case studies. In 2017, there was a large panel of TripAdvisor, ADARA, Arrivalist, and others discussing their latest data-driven marketing tools.

Reason #4: Case Studies

If you are having trouble seeing how marketing and research work hand-in-hand, there are numerous case studies available during sessions. Marketing executives discuss how they used research in their strategies to cultivate new marketing executions that performed above and beyond. Take these ideas and how-tos and go forth and multiply because this is the real meat of the conference.