Larry sits down with Brittany Kenner, marketing director for Murray, Kentucky — the self-proclaimed friendliest small town in America, home to Murray State University and a tourism office of exactly two people running the whole show. Brittany's through-line is that a small budget and a small team aren't a handicap so much as a forcing function: when you can't buy your way into attention, you get very good at earning it. Her headline take is that social engagement isn't dying, it's relocating. The public likes and comments are down, but the real conversations have quietly slipped into DMs and shares — and chasing vanity metrics means missing where the actual interest now lives.

From there it's a clinic in scrappy, place-led marketing: treating Instagram and TikTok like the search engines they've quietly become, putting paid dollars where they actually convert (Spotify and Facebook, not TikTok), and being your own influencer when you can't afford to rent one. Brittany also digs into building a destination brand from the ground up with no marquee attraction to lean on, the genuine synergy she's built with the university, and a charmingly low-tech visitor-guide campaign she hand-addressed herself — Hallmark-movie energy with a real marketing brain behind it.

In this episode:

• 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 03:22 - Transitioning to Trends in Community Marketing
• 08:07 - The Charm of Small Town Connections
• 13:23 - Building a Tourism Strategy
• 16:42 - Partnerships in Tourism and Community Engagement
• 18:24 - Exploring Visitor Engagement Strategies

Key Takeaways:

• Engagement didn't die, it moved to the DMs: Public likes and comments are down, but conversations shifted to DMs and shares — so Brittany leans into shareable content and an Instagram broadcast channel.
• Social is the new search engine: People use TikTok and Instagram to plan trips now, not just scroll.
• Spend where it converts: Small paid budget goes to Spotify and Facebook, not TikTok.
• Be your own influencer: Brittany and her intern became the faces of the town — cheaper than paid influencers and a local-goodwill bonus.
• Building a brand with no marquee attraction: No festival fanbase or big-city draw to coast on — the work is finding people who genuinely love the place.
• The university is the ultimate partner: A board seat, joint rankings wins, and real content give-and-take.
• Find partners who get small-market tourism: Most agency pitches assume an attraction and audience that tiny towns don't have.
• Case study — the hand-addressed visitor guide: A simple social + Spotify push, guides addressed by hand, riding the Kindness Matters murals' Good Housekeeping feature.

About Our Guest:

Brittany Kenner (Murray CVB site)

Director of Marketing & Communications

Brittany moved to Murray in 2020 and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations from Murray State University. She brings a fresh, energetic perspective to her role as Director of Marketing with the CVB. Her time as an Account Manager at Bauer Entertainment Marketing gave her a solid grounding in brand strategy, the hospitality world, and content creation — all of it central to putting the MKY on the map. Outside of work, you'll find Brittany spending time with her family or out enjoying a good music festival.

Recorded live from the Etourism Conference in Louisville, this one's a fun reminder that the biggest travel trend of 2026 might be walking around on four legs. Coryn Briggs, Senior Director of Marketing at Traverse City Tourism, breaks down TripAdvisor's "VIP Travel" trend — which turns out to mean Very Important Pets, not very important people — and explains why dog and cat owners are increasingly building entire vacations around their animals.

From there, Coryn gets into the stuff every DMO marketer is wrestling with: the agritourism boom (a natural fit for the self-proclaimed Cherry Capital of the World, with 50+ wineries to match), the real AI challenge of picking the right tools instead of just chasing every shiny new one, and the perennial grind of filling shoulder seasons in a four-distinct-seasons destination. She closes on Traverse City's north star — core memories — and the multigenerational families who keep coming back because of them.

In This Episode:

• 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 01:15 - Introduction to Aqua Talks and Corinne Briggs
• 03:40 - Trends in Travel: The Rise of Pet-Friendly Vacations
• 04:48 - Emerging Trends in Travel and Agritourism
• 07:42 - Emerging Trends in Tourism
• 08:38 - Promoting Traverse City Tourism

Key Takeaways:

• VIP = Very Important Pets. TripAdvisor's 2026 trend report flagged pet-centered travel as a fast-riser — strong with dog owners, now expanding to cat owners planning trips around their animals.
• Agritourism is having a moment, and it's on-brand for working farm destinations. Skillcations, farm stands, U-pick orchards — Coryn sees real runway here, especially tied to America's 250th and the Americana nostalgia angle.
• The AI challenge isn't keeping up — it's choosing. Just because a tool exists doesn't mean it fits your org. The work is evaluating which tools actually serve your team's efficiency or your consumer messaging.
• Shoulder seasons are the year-round battle. Summer (June–mid-September) and fall color carry the calendar; the November–mid-May stretch takes deliberate initiatives to drive visitation.
• Lead with core memories. Traverse City's positioning centers on multigenerational return visits — kids who vacationed there now bringing their own families back.
• 2026 anniversaries are marketing gold. The National Cherry Festival hits its 100th year, dovetailing nicely with the country's 250th.

Larry catches up with Cristal Rodriguez, Director of Marketing at Tempe Tourism and a recent Marketer of the Year, for a conversation that covers solo travel, a rooftop renaissance, a 13-years-in-the-making rebrand, and the slightly terrifying reality of competing with ChatGPT for "best pizza in Tempe" searches. Cristal makes a strong case that Tempe isn't trying to out-Scottsdale Scottsdale or out-Phoenix Phoenix — it's carving its own lane as the more elevated, walkable, slower-paced cousin in the metro, and that positioning is finally clicking with the solo-traveler segment they've leaned hard into.

The meatier marketing conversation is about life after the big rebrand reveal. Cristal is candid that plenty of DMOs nail the launch and then coast — she's deep in phase two/three, asking what comes after awareness. She and Larry get into the intangibility problem unique to destination marketing (you can't hold the product, attribution windows are a guessing game), the AI search hit on paid performance, and why the DMO community calling each other "colleagues, not competitors" is becoming a real survival strategy. Also: tequila, jalapeño margaritas, and a half-serious threat to push Larry into a Tempe pool live on Aqua Talks.

• Solo travel is a serious lane, not a fringe trend. Tempe is intentionally building around what solo travelers actually want — safety, walkability, centrality, strong food and bar scenes — including dedicated solo-influencer partnerships and itinerary content built specifically for the audience.
• The rebrand was a two-year, all-hands-on-deck operation — and social led the launch. After 13 years untouched, the new Tempe brand kicked off on social channels first, with ads and the website rolling out in sequence. The shift in tone was POV-driven: less "things to try" and more "here's what we think you should try, and here's why."
• Phase two is the harder phase. Cristal flagged a pattern of DMOs nailing the rebrand reveal and then losing momentum. Tempe's current focus is sustaining post-launch energy and moving past awareness into deeper engagement — modeled in part on Visit Philly and LA, who keep pushing forward.
• The Canada case study Cristal can't stop watching. Canada's destination work that leans into the faults (yes, it's cold; yes, sometimes there's nothing to do) is, in her view, one of the smartest contrarian plays in destination marketing right now — and the metrics back it up.
• Positioning by contrast, not competition. Tempe sits intentionally between Scottsdale (luxury/spa/golf) and Phoenix (urban/fast-paced) and leans into being neither — slower, more elevated, off the beaten path. The DMOs in metro Phoenix actively collaborate rather than compete, sharing tactical intel as the AI-search landscape shifts under them.
• AI is rewriting the paid playbook in real time. Tempe's paid search took a hit last year as more travel research moves to ChatGPT and similar tools. Cristal's response: tighter cross-DMO collaboration to share what's working, faster pivoting, and accepting that the rules are getting rewritten week to week.
• Destination marketing's measurement problem is real. With no physical product to point at and attribution windows that can stretch six months, DMOs are forced to lean harder on data and analytics than almost any other marketing discipline — while accepting they'll never quite know which billboard sealed the deal.
• The ASU narrative is a gift and a curse. Tempe Tourism is actively working to reframe outsider perception of Tempe as a "college town" — particularly intra-state, where Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff residents may not have visited since their own ASU days. The city has matured. The marketing is working to catch the audience up.