travel-planning
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Marilyn Olson and the Art of Arriving Before the Problem Does
After decades communicating through corporate complexity, Marilyn Olson changed what she plans - not how she thinks. At Studio M Travel, the tiny details are still the whole assignment.
Gena Carlstrom and the Art of the Soft Landing
A former marketing executive learned to treat the family holiday as a human problem, not a booking problem. Now she plans for the detail everyone forgets: how a trip should feel once everyone arrives.
The Tourist Office That Became a Living Room
Visit Fort Collins learned that the best way to sell a city might be to give the city a room of its own. By day, it guides visitors. By night, the Welcome Center hands the microphone back to the people who live there.
The Tourism Board That Turned C$10.2 Million Into 1 Million Trips - With an Asterisk
Destination Ontario built a public-sector growth loop from research, stories and partner links. The useful bit is not the postcard - it is how the agency measures attention all the way to estimated trips and spending, then admits where the math and the channels changed.
The 107-Year-Old Tourism Bureau That Learned More Visitors Isn’t the Whole Point
Tourisme Montréal once sold motorists a road to the city. After tourism collapsed, it rebuilt the pitch around residents, winter, culture and measurable local value - a useful playbook for anyone marketing a place they do not control.
Destination Toronto Sells a City It Cannot Control - And Turns Attention Into a $9.1 Billion Visitor Economy
The nonprofit does not own a hotel, stage a festival or fly a plane. Its job is harder to see: make thousands of independent Toronto experiences feel like one trip worth taking - then prove the attention became visits, meetings and local spending.
Out of Office
Out of Office (OOO) is a Chicago-based travel technology company that helps people plan trips using recommendations from the people they actually trust - friends, family, and the influencers they follow - instead of anonymous review sites. Founded in 2020 by former Trunk Club executives Jan Seale and Coabi Kastan, the app lets travelers browse curated spots across thousands of cities, build and share itineraries, book hotels, and reserve restaurant tables in one place, and more recently generate full trip plans with an AI trip generator.