Every day’s a school day – and with technology and consumer expectations shifting fast, there’s no time to rest on your laurels. Place brand and marketers need to invest in training now which anticipates the challenges and opportunities that cities, regions, and nations will face in the coming years.

To understand how you can ensure your team has the skills they need to succeed, we reached out to our expert partners to discover what essential training you should be offering.

Strengthen storytelling capabilities within your team.

Most leaders reach for technical upskilling when they think about the year ahead. But the single most important skill teams need right now is compelling storytelling. Every place organisation needs to reimagine itself as a media company. Your website, social feeds, all external comms: these are channels. And channels need reporters.

Teams must know how to observe what matters, ask sharper questions, distinguish signal from noise, and translate complexity into stories people actually understand. In a fractured attention economy, influence doesn’t belong to those who know the most — it belongs to those who can make meaning out of what they know. 

Stephanie Kochorek, Founder & CEO, Daughter

Develop data-first thinking to underpin a cohesive place narrative.

Place leaders should be training their teams on brand narrative and how to tell the story in a truly cohesive way. Teams must be able to clearly provide rational, data-informed information while also being guided to connect emotionally with their target audience. Equally important is developing segmentation insights that allow them to move beyond broad messaging and connect on a personal level with that audience. The focus should be on building strategic communication capability that drives relevance, trust, and long-term value—not just short-term promotional output. 

Matthew Kruchko, Head of Global Operations, Gravity Global

Set up virtual coffee dates with your peers from other organisations.

It’s rarely about formal training. It’s about getting out there, doing site visits, go-sees, and learning from real places doing things you admire. Go experience them first-hand: talk to the people who run them, notice who feels welcome, and who doesn’t. But please don’t just copy or buy the same initiatives. That’s how places lose their distinctiveness and drift into the generic. Instead, ask: what’s the bespoke, place-rooted version of this for us? And try to find a buddy - someone in a similar role, in a similar kind of place, but far enough away that you’re not competing. Set up regular check-ins, share what’s working (and what isn’t), and learn from each other. 

Amy Lewis, Culture & Place Consultant, CTConsults

Prepare your team to handle conflict – but also to be ready for potential crises.

They should be training their teams on the things that actually show up in our work with places and destinations. People need to get comfortable with data, not in a technical way, but able to read movement, sentiment, and basic economic signals and make a call without waiting for a long report. They need practice in how to speak with communities, handle disagreement, and turn what they hear into something usable. Crisis routines also need training: simple scenarios, quick reactions, clear communication. Sustainability has to shape everyday choices, so teams need enough grounding to apply it in real work. Partnership work is another area, because most projects move only when different agendas are managed well. And experience design should be trained as a basic skill, so programmes and ideas follow the user’s path. Finally, teams need hands-on training with AI, not theory, just how to use it to structure research, draft faster, and manage pressure when timelines tighten. 

Manolis Psarros, CEO & Chief Strategist, TOPOSOPHY

Integrate systems thinking within your team.

Places, by their nature, are systems… ecosystems, economic systems, social systems. Place-focused leaders need models that address the multi-layered complexity that’s inherent in every locale, from neighbourhoods to nations.

For high-impact, actionable learning, explore systems innovation and biomimicry. They may sound esoteric, but the tools are highly practical. Biomimicry—the science of applying nature’s most ingenious innovations to human challenges—tackles everything from product design to business models. Systems Innovation courses cover many useful applications, from stakeholder mapping to change leverage points. As a pioneer of systems science, Donella Meadows, wrote, “We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them.” 

Jeannette Hanna, Chief Strategist, Trajectory

Upskill your team in using AI technologies.

It’s a critical moment for destination organisations to commit resources towards practical and strategic guidance for AI use. Transparent and specific AI policies and thoughtful training will empower your organisation to use AI appropriately and strategically, helping to ensure information accuracy, audience relevance, and continued visitor and stakeholder trust.

Sociopolitical and environmental unpredictability also threaten the success of place leaders and the communities and organisations they lead—making resilience and creative problem solving more crucial than ever. Strategic planning, team and stakeholder training, and ongoing investments in your community and partner relationships can help to build increased organizational resilience and individual adaptability. 

Sara Meaney, Managing Partner, Coraggio Group (part of Miles Partnership)

Ensure you have strong SEO and GEO fundamentals across your full team.

To truly influence AI answers about your region, everyone on your team needs a basic understanding of SEO and GEO fundamentals, not just the digital team. PR, research, web, content, social, and leadership should all understand how their work affects the information being shared by AI answers and search engines, and how small adjustments can have a major impact.

Start with a clear, cohesive SEO and GEO strategy. Then hold a training session for each team to help them understand how their role feeds into the overall strategy and best practices for strengthening the online narrative within their focus area. 

Brianna Vetrano, Digital Marketing Consultant, Vetrano Digital Marketing

Understand how to collaborate with AI as a teammate.

Place leaders should focus on 'AI-collaboration skills'—teaching teams to work with AI as a teammate, not just a tool. Now that AI is widely accessible, the real advantage lies not in owning the technology, but in how effectively teams put it to use. This means AI literacy workshops, practical prompting sessions, and training on bias detection and responsible oversight. Scenario-planning exercises help teams stress-test decisions and surface blind spots. But technology alone won't succeed. Strengthening soft skills in parallel is essential: critical thinking to question assumptions, contextual awareness to understand local nuance, and the ability to translate AI insights into human-led action. The most effective place teams blend AI's analytical power with human judgment and creativity—turning intelligence into impact. 

Mirko Lalli, CEO and Founder, The Data Appeal Company

Blend tech proficiencies with human strengths.

In a travel industry projected to grow 6-9% annually through 2026, leaders must prepare teams with skills that transcend roles and sectors. With AI expected to reshape 70% of job skills by 2030, per LinkedIn’s Skills on the Rise report, success will depend on pairing tech fluency with human strengths like design thinking, adaptability, customer engagement and stakeholder management. Travel marketers need cross-industry agility: the ability to merge analytics with empathy and automation with relationship-building. At MMGY Global, we’re investing in skills amplified by technology, where human judgment and digital tools work in harmony. 

Oksana Kovalenko, CHRO, MMGY Global

Invest in training to support more sustainable tourism.

In 2026, place leaders should train their teams in sustainable tourism planning and destination management, grounded in a clear understanding of destination identity, resource capacity, and local ownership. Identity articulation should come first, with local ownership at the centre, so residents define how their place is presented and take pride in the outcomes. Teams must also understand carrying capacity, not to maximise use, but to manage it responsibly for long-term resilience. This approach helps communities move away from volume-driven thinking toward enduring value and protecting local character, strengthening community pride, and creating better, more sustainable visitor experiences. 

Regina Binder, Strategic Planning Director, Trove Tourism Development Advisors

Build strong community and stakeholder engagement strategies.

For 2026, place teams need three layers of training. (1) Data & AI fluency: prompt engineering basics, privacy-safe data use, and turning mobility, spend, and sentiment data into narrative insight. (2) Audience building & creativity: community engagement, creator partnerships with governance, and rapid creative testing to learn what actually differentiates your place. (3) Stakeholder orchestration: facilitation, procurement literacy, and outcome-based measurement so agencies, investors, and civic groups pull in the same direction. Add refreshers on crisis communications and brand safety. The goal: faster learning cycles, clearer proof points, and messages that are distinct and defensible. 

JS Prenovost, VP Strategy, Propulso