Here are five of our top takeaways from the conversation at City Nation Place Global and UK, providing a top-line summary of the leading trends shaping place branding, destination marketing, and economic development around the world.

We've collated insights from our speakers across four of the key themes weaving throughout the conferences: how organisations are re-thinking after the crises of the past few years; collaboration between key stakeholders; quality of life for your residents; and developing a sustainable strategy that will continue to deliver returns.

In spite of all the chatter about ‘building back better’, it’s fairly unsurprising that old habits are proving once again to die hard. The Travel Foundation's Jeremy Sampson calls for better collaboration to tackle the greatest challenges facing tourism.

Vancouver Island recently announced that they are transforming their tourism marketing organisation into a social enterprise. We caught up with Anthony Everett, CEO at 4VI, to discover what prompted the change and how they’re navigating the challenges along the way.

If you launch a place brand strategy, you have to be in it for the long haul. We reached out to our panel of experts to help you create a strategy that continues to deliver for your place in the long-term.

We talk a lot about internal collaboration between destination marketing organisations and economic development organisations in order to tell a more holistic story about your place. But how can you go above and beyond that? Here are some of our favourite outside-the-box approaches to collaboration to inspire your next partnership!

Measuring the success of your work is critical. However, as places increasingly look towards their quality of life, the KPIs we use need to evolve as well.

How is the world of travel and tourism changing? Before she joins us as one of the City Nation Place Awards judges, Gloria Loree, SVP & Chief Marketing Officer for Destination Canada, outlines how a loyalty programme created the space to re-engage prospective travellers in the country, how Destination Canada are collaborating with their Indigenous Tourism partners, and a few of her personal predictions for the future.

Last week, Sheffield announced the launch of a new campaign – Sheffield Your University City - created in collaboration between Sheffield Council’s marketing body and the city’s two universities. We caught up with the masterminds behind the innovative collaboration to understand more about the journey and what they learned along the way.

We know how busy the life of a place brand and marketing leader is. Which is why we reached out to our partners for the 2022 Americas conference to get their top line coverage of the discussion – ensuring you’re up to date on all the latest topics in an easily digestible format.

So with no further ado, here we go…

Pittsburgh's Oakland district is the focal point of innovation, and the city is collaborating with its key stakeholders to develop the district further. Mark Thomas, President of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, walks us through Oakland to show how they're strengthening the area

Clear communication is essential to any successful partnership – even more so when you’re working with external parties. Four of our expert partners shared their thoughts on how you could write a good brief to explain the challenge or project you want to tackle, putting you on the best footing for a partnership with an agency or consultancy.

With so many stakeholders involved – and with most DMOs not owning any of their assets – is true destination management just a pipe dream? And how do you evolve a destination management mindset to one of destination stewardship?