Destination Think

A huge thank you to Rikke for having the vision to bring this group together, and to Ann-Kristin, Lindsay, and Amy for making it happen with such care and intention. And thank you to Wonderful Copenhagen for being such generous partners, deeply committed to sharing what you’re learning with the world. We are all leaving with pages of ideas, examples, and inspiration from people who are showing what destination leadership can look like when it is grounded in place, values, and possibility. I'm grateful to all of the guests and hosts who shared their time and thinking; Jens Kramer Mikkelsen, Dorthe Weinkouff Barsøe, Anders Lendager, Niklas Ahlefeldt-Laurvig, Kasper Eich-Romme, Helene Hjortlund, Søren Tegen Pedersen, Lena Ilkjaer, Line Barfod, and all of the CopenPay partners who helped make the week so rich.

We’re halfway through our week in Copenhagen, and a pattern is emerging: The places that are winning aren’t thinking about “managing tourism”, they’re shaping culture. Some more ideas: 1. Design for locals first. Dorthe Weinkouff Barsøe put it simply: if you create experiences that locals genuinely love, you naturally attract visitors who align with those values and make life better for residents, not worse. 2. Make tourism part of the solution. CopenPay is doing more than influencing visitor behaviour it’s repositioning tourism itself. Suddenly, the tourism board isn’t the problem. It’s a partner in solving the city’s biggest challenges. 3. Fund infrastructure through imagination. At CopenHill, waste management becomes a ski hill, a climbing wall and a destination. Tourism doesn’t just consume infrastructure. With creativity, it can help pay for it. 4. Stand for something. If Alchemist can use food to challenge how people think about the world, then tourism can do the same. The stories we tell and the experiences we elevate can reflect what matters to a community. Put simply, you can chose what you show visiting media. 5. Design for human connection. At Absalon, Lennart and his team have removed the invisible barriers: – No bathroom signs → people ask each other – Shared tables → strangers sit together – Staff taught to “matchmake” guests – Shared plates → you can’t help but interact It’s simple and intentional. And it’s completely unique. Most places are missing this very rich opportunity. 6. Work with the system you have. Søren and the team at Wonderful Copenhagen are deeply attuned to their political context. Tourism only gets attention when it becomes a problem. Copenpay has helped make it visibly part of the solution. Tourism boards can test and innovate in ways governments often can’t. 7. Make the right choice the easy choice. You see it everywhere: like turning former streets into public spaces with ping pong tables. Copenhagen didn’t hit every climate target. But that’s not failure, it’s progress at a system level. The next goal: climate positive by 2035, including Scope 3 emissions. That has big implications for all of us working in tourism. Copenhagen isn’t perfect but there is an important lesson about mindset and possibility here.

Less than 24 hours into being together in Copenhagen with a group of Collective members, Wonderful Copenhagen and Destination Think, and already the learning is overflowing. Even the setting said something important. We chose The Krane; a former coal crane, transformed into a stunning boardroom overlooking the harbour. That felt fitting, because the real story of Copenhagen is one of transformation. Not that long ago, the harbour was so polluted you could not swim in it. The city invested billions of kroner to restore it. Now it is one of the clearest symbols of what is possible when a place decides to change course and follows through. It is an incredible place to live and work, and that seems to be the point. Everywhere you look here, sustainability feels like it has been worked into someone’s part of the system. A few ideas that are standing out: 1. Hosting the right events can change a city. COP in Copenhagen helped catalyze sustainability action here. Big events are not just economic wins. They can accelerate capability, public conversation, policy attention and long-term change when they connect to a place’s mission. Søren Tegen Pedersen reminded me that Wonderful Copenhagen now has a program to ensure events leave a legacy; working with major events to contribute to societal issues that matter to Copenhagen. 2. Examples of possibility do not need to solve the whole problem. They need to help people see a different future is possible. That was a powerful thread in hearing Anders Lendager speak. A proof point, a building, a project, a pilot. These things can start to shift the narrative long before the whole system changes. 3. Don’t develop a destination. Develop an incredible place to live. Jens Kramer Mikkelsen put it simply. Focus on health, wellbeing and quality of life. Those things are hard to argue with. If you create a place where people genuinely want to live, others will want to visit too. 4. DMOs need to help their tourism industry prepare for an uncertain future. But uncertain does not have to mean negative. As Susanna Bernschein said, we do not have to wait and react. We can shape what comes next together. 5. Bold ambition matters. Niklas Ahlefeldt-Laurvig talked about transformation. Building support from the ground up, using proof points and pilot projects to help a bigger vision take shape. These ideas feel relevant far beyond Copenhagen.

Do Higher Tourism Taxes Decrease Visitor Demand? As more communities and states consider raising tourism taxes to address resident concerns, strong claims often emerge about both the positive and negative effects of these increases. This Research One-Pager steps back from the rhetoric to examine what the broader body of evidence actually shows. The key takeaway: Tourism taxes can influence demand, but the magnitude of that effect varies widely depending on the destination, visitor markets, and the availability of substitutes. Read the summary here: https://lnkd.in/ggrqFHAZ

CopenPay is getting a lot of attention. But I think many people are still underestimating what it really is. It’s not just a tourism campaign or a behaviour-change idea. It may be one of the clearest examples I’ve seen of a destination organization repositioning itself as part of the solution. Inside Destination Think's Collective, we recently hosted two roundtables on the program, where Rikke Holm Petersen and Jonas Løvschall-Wedel generously shared their learning with members destinations around the world. This stood out to me as a great example of how the Collective can efficiently scale learning. Unsurprisingly, Copenhagen has been inundated with requests from destinations wanting to understand CopenPay. But like many leading organizations, the team Wonderful Copenhagen are very busy. We ran two sessions with members from across the world. Andrew Saunders from Noosa Council and Betsy Truax from Visit Mammoth each led one session. Our team helped shape the conversation so the learning could go deeper, faster, and with less burden on Copenhagen’s team. That, to me, is how this industry should work more often: leaders sharing what’s real, peers engaging deeply, and the learning being translated into something others can actually use. CopenPay is worth that attention. Because it’s not just a clever campaign. It engages businesses in shaping visitor behaviour in line with resident priorities. It gives partners a practical role in the transition. It strengthens Copenhagen’s position as a destination guided by values, not just volume. And it shows how tourism can evolve into something much more meaningful: helping communities solve problems, not just attract demand. The more I dig into it, the more layers I see. As I was preparing with Søren Tegen Pedersen for an immersive tour in Copenhagen next week, I realized CopenPay may be doing even more than many people first assume. It helps reposition the tourism board; not as a growth engine that residents or policymakers may see as part of the problem, but as a credible partner in solving shared challenges. It makes tourism visible and it opens up wider civic potential. It's easy to see how a model like Copenpay could evolve to influence resident behaviour, including around climate action. It becomes a prototype for a different kind of destination organization: one that can align brand, business engagement, visitor behaviour, community priorities, and public-sector trust. Next week, 20 destinations from around the world will join us in Copenhagen to immerse themselves in the city’s transformation, which I’m genuinely expecting to be one of the highlights of my year. Huge thanks to Rikke, Jonas, AK, Soren, Elizabeth, and the whole Copenhagen team for being so generous with their time and thinking. #CopenPay #DestinationPay #DestinationStewardship #DestinationManagement #TourismLeadership #Sustainability

𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱 #𝟭 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱𝘄𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗺 At ITB Berlin, the world’s largest travel trade show, Van Gogh Nationaal Park received first place in the 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗼𝗿𝘆 of the Green Destinations 𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲. 🏆 This international recognition highlights Brabant’s integrated approach to tourism, where recreation, nature and quality of life are developed in balance with one another. 🌿 A key element of this strategy is 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿, part of the European MONA Project. The initiative focuses on developing new starting points for walking routes and encouraging people to explore nature closer to home. By doing so, visitor flows are better distributed and vulnerable natural areas are protected. 🚶♀️🌱 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒈𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒉 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝑩𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒎, 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒂𝒃𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒈𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eSi-N42n Brabant Partners #visitbrabant #traveltrade #goedleveninbrabant #itbberlin #tourism #brabant #monaproject #sustainable

Over the past few years, we’ve been going through a quiet transformation at Destination Think. The mission hasn’t changed. We still exist to help the world’s leading destinations leverage tourism for the good of their place and for the benefit of the planet. But how we do that has changed. We’ve shifted to place our expertise at the centre of something bigger: the Destination Think Collective - a global community of destination leaders learning from one another as they navigate one of the hardest shifts in our industry: leading destination stewardship. It’s not easy work. It’s political. It’s emotional. It requires new skills, new coalitions, and often, a great deal of courage. That’s why the Collective exists. Last week we brought members together for our first session of the year. I already knew the calibre of the group was high. But hearing directly from everyone was something else; seeing the conviction, the experimentation and the ambition first hand. We heard from destinations: → building private funding models for stewardship → aiming for fully decarbonized visitor economies → grounding tourism in quality of life, circular systems and the donut economy → rethinking visitor behaviour through incentives and nudging → and places like Hawaiʻi, who believe their destination can change the world It genuinely felt like a group of destination leaders stepping into a different level of responsibility. For me, it was a very personal and validating moment because this is exactly why we started the Collective. We believed there were leaders out there ready to step into this next chapter of tourism, who don't just want to manage demand but reshape the role of tourism in society. Now they’re enabling each other's success. I'm grateful to the founding members who had the conviction to build this with us from the beginning and excited to welcome an extraordinary group of new destinations into the community this year. — Rodney #DestinationThink #TourismForGood #RegenerativeTourism #DestinationManagement #ClimateAction