destination-marketing
(4)
The 280 People Who Sell 75 Million Vacations a Year
It owns no hotels, no theme parks, no roller coasters. Yet Visit Orlando's small team turns Orange County's hotel tax into a $94.5 billion visitor economy - and 468,000 jobs.
Frank Soukup III
Frank Soukup III is a Minnesota marketing leader who spent more than a decade branding resorts and destinations before becoming the first Chief Marketing Officer of Just For Kix, the youth dance company, and its custom-apparel division The TeeHive. A Certified Hospitality Digital Marketer, he built his reputation guiding Grand View Lodge, Tanque Verde Ranch and Cote Family Companies, ran his own agency, and served as a senior strategist at WhiteBox Marketing. He sits on several Minnesota tourism and hospitality boards and now focuses on connecting a 40-year-old dance brand with the next generation of dancers, directors and families.
KeyData
KeyData (Key Data Dashboard) is a Santa Rosa Beach, Florida based analytics company that turns verified, direct-from-source reservation data into market intelligence for the short-term and vacation rental industry. By integrating directly with property management systems rather than scraping listing calendars, it gives professional property managers, destination marketing organizations, investors and enterprise research teams real-time benchmarks on occupancy, ADR, RevPAR and booking demand. Founded in 2018 and backed by $12.4M in funding, the company reports coverage of millions of properties and thousands of property managers across global markets.
Matador Network
Matador Network is a San Francisco-based travel media company founded in 2006 that publishes original stories, videos, and city guides for modern, adventure-minded travelers. Bootstrapped from an $11,000 start into one of the world's largest independent travel brands, its content reaches well over 100 million people a month across web and social. In 2023 it launched GuideGeek, a free OpenAI-powered travel assistant that answers questions inside Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, and now licenses white-label versions of that AI to tourism boards and destination marketing organizations worldwide.