Sojern Unveils its 2025 State of Destination Marketing Report

Sojern, the leading digital marketing platform built for travel, is excited to announce the launch of the “State of Destination Marketing 2025” report for destination marketing organizations (DMOs). This report, produced through a partnership between Sojern and Benchmark Research Partners—and supported by Brand USA, Destination Canada, the European Travel Commission, and the Caribbean Tourism Organization—builds off the 2024 report and highlights current destination marketing trends.

“A striking 85% of DMOs are maintaining or increasing digital advertising budgets compared to last year,” said Noreen Henry, Chief Revenue Officer at Sojern. “As DMOs invest more into their budgets and adopt more sophisticated strategies, they must continue to demonstrate return on that investment, which requires them to leverage advanced tools and data to engage travelers throughout the marketing funnel.”

With insights from nearly 200 global DMOs, government departments, and affiliated tourism entities, the report uncovers just how resilient digital advertising is.

Complex Campaigns, Rising Challenges

DMOs face challenges such as managing limited resources while showing clear results, rising expectations, and technological change. The pressure is high to deliver results, and the resulting multichannel campaigns are more technical and complex. While 60% use clicks as their top metric, 54% struggle to demonstrate clear ROI and 37% identify tracking and attribution as key challenges when managing full-funnel campaigns.

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Currently, 83% of respondents focus on programmatic advertising. Programmatic’s trackability, precision, and cost effectiveness enables DMOs to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

Display ads (97%), social media advertising (90%), and search engine marketing (80%) remain the dominant channels in DMOs’ paid media strategy.

AI Adoption: A Growing Opportunity

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping destination marketing, with 63% of DMOs using it for content creation. Only 28% use AI for data analysis, highlighting a massive opportunity to use AI for deeper insights and more effective decision-making. Addressing resource limitations and training gaps will be critical to unlocking AI’s full potential.

Always-On Campaigns vs. Traditional Seasonal Campaigns

While DMOs have traditionally preferred to run seasonal campaigns, the report revealed that 52% are now favoring always-on campaigns over seasonal ones (40%). Always-on campaigns drive results, with 42% reporting improved brand awareness as the most significant impact an always-on marketing strategy has on overall campaign performance.

DMOs are getting better at crafting campaigns for specific audiences–for example, 66% are extensively focusing on outdoor enthusiasts–but only 15% are using advanced personalization techniques that adjust offerings in real time across channels. This leaves a huge opportunity to create more tailored experiences for travelers at every stage of their journey.

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Brand-building is Emerging as a Top Priority

For the past four years since the COVID-19 pandemic, DMOs needed to drive bookings and deliver short-term results to enable business to bounce back. Now that the industry has stabilized, DMOs are rebalancing, with campaigns taking a long-term strategic approach. As a result, brand awareness has become more important, and this shift is clear in how campaigns are being run—now split 50/50 between stage-specific and full-funnel strategies, a big change from 2024 when full-funnel dominated at 70%.

The Promise and Challenges of Data

Data is one of the most powerful tools DMOs have, but figuring out how to use it effectively is no easy task. More than half (51%) of DMOs say data analysis is a major challenge, and 45% struggle to turn that data into actionable strategies. Still, these hurdles present an opportunity for DMOs to stand out by using data to create campaigns that hit the mark. The report shows that most DMOs are already leveraging data—84% for digital marketing insights, 75% for tracking visitor stats, and 69% for market research.

Co-op Marketing: Collaboration Gains Traction

Co-op marketing continues to grow, particularly in Europe, where the report revealed that participation increased by 16% year-over-year. By partnering with hotels, attractions, and airlines, DMOs can pool resources, extend campaign reach, and better scale efforts.

Social Media Dominates, but Video Adoption is Growing

Social media remains central, with 91% of DMOs using it for marketing and 99% ranking Facebook and Instagram among their top five channels. However, connected TV (CTV) and short-form video are gaining traction as emerging formats, offering significant potential for DMOs to create immersive, visually rich campaigns that resonate deeply with travelers.