Stuart Butler and Adam Stoker kick off 2026 with a New Year’s episode built around Stuart’s “predictions” (not resolutions). They open with optimism (and a little healthy fear) about uncertainty, talk about the industry’s need for more honest conversations, invite listeners to two live appearances in Q1, and then dig into three big predictions for the destination marketing world in 2026: the DMO website won’t “die” this year (but the shift is real), consolidation will accelerate across vendors and DMOs, and experiences will increasingly outrank destinations as the primary travel motivator.

Stu’s News

Instead of a traditional news item, Stu’s News is an invitation:
• Live appearance #1: South Carolina Governor’s Conference — Tuesday, February 10 (in Myrtle Beach, SC)
• Live appearance #2: Destinations International Marcom Summit for Destinations — February 24–26 (they expect to speak on Thursday, February 26)
• Stuart and Adam frame these as chances to bring real discourse to conference stages, pushing beyond “safe” programming and into the tougher conversations the industry needs.

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The 3 predictions for 2026

1) AI won’t kill the DMO website in 2026 (but the era is changing)
Stuart’s headline take: DMO websites won’t be “dead” within 12 months, but “it is the end of the beginning” for the traditional website-driven model.

Key points discussed:
• Humans are the bottleneck: capabilities are racing ahead, but adoption lags.
• Website traffic decline is real, especially organic traffic, but much of what’s lost is low-value “simple Q&A” traffic now answered directly in search experiences.
• DMOs shouldn’t panic, but they also shouldn’t pause preparation: start planting now (lean into conversational commerce and new user journeys).
• Adam reframes it like an investment strategy: even if the website still performs, you diversify before the market shifts.

2) Massive consolidation is coming (vendors and DMOs)
Stuart predicts consolidation on “both sides of the fence”:

Vendor side
• Budget pressure on DMOs squeezes agencies, platforms, and software providers.
• Stuart argues the current ecosystem is too fragmented and consolidation could create more cohesive product suites.
• Adam agrees consolidation is inevitable (especially in SaaS), but worries consolidation could reduce the nimble, high-touch benefits of smaller agencies—and potentially slow innovation if done poorly.
• Both agree: if consolidation happens, it needs to be additive and accelerate innovation, not stall it.

DMO / community side
• Stuart predicts growing consolidation through regional alignment, collaboration, and potentially mergers, driven by two scarcities:
• Money
• Human capital (the workload is expanding faster than staffing can)
• He expects more “radical collaboration” across tourism, economic development, downtown/placemaking, realtor groups, etc.
• Adam strongly agrees tourism and economic development being separate is often a miss, and gives an example from Utah where visitors don’t experience the boundaries between jurisdictions, yet the organizations are structurally split and duplicating efforts.
• Stuart adds Myrtle Beach-area context: consumers don’t differentiate between lines on a map, so alignment matters.

3) Experiences will replace destinations as the primary driver
Stuart’s most provocative concept: 2026 may be “the beginning of the end for the destination”—meaning the brand pull shifts toward experiences, moments, and events.

Highlights:
• Travel decisions increasingly start with a concert, a game, a viral restaurant, or something seen on social media, not “I want to go to X destination.”
• Stuart shares examples of experience-driven demand (viral food spots, status posts, even hate-posts driving curiosity).
• The implication: DMOs may need to re-embrace roles they’ve moved away from, including:
• Experience curation
• Product development influence (helping stakeholders “up their game”)
• Event promotion and/or creation
• Truth-bearing / trust-building as the source of what’s legit and worth doing
• They agree this topic deserves a full standalone episode.

Memorable moments & themes
• “This is not financial advice, this is not legal advice” (Stuart jokingly sets the tone for predictions).
• The “humans are the bottleneck” thread runs throughout the AI conversation.
• “Radical collaboration” is positioned as more important than who gets credit.
• A running joke about needing a new Stu’s News jingle by 2026 (and maybe flying cars too).
What’s next

They tee up several upcoming 2026-focused episodes:
• An episode featuring submitted predictions from industry peers
• Adam’s resolutions/predictions episode
• A future episode with Amir discussing trends not strictly tied to AI