Tourism Currents

Did you know that Pinterest has a real-time dashboard that helps you track developing travel trends, plus the Pinterest Predicts report?

Use Pinterest to find travel trends - Tourism Currents®

Lots going on from Brand USA / Visit The USA right now for international visitors, including highlighting ideas for the Great American Road Trip. Is your destination included?

AMERICA THE BOUNDLESS: 50 WAYS TO EXPERIENCE THE SPIRIT OF THE OPEN ROAD | Brand USA WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 18, 2026) — There are few experiences more distinctly American than the road trip. It’s woven into the country’s identity through long stretches of highway cutting through desert landscapes, coastal roads hugging the Pacific, small towns marked by neon signs and roadside ...

Is your U.S. destination working on astrotourism or dark sky tourism projects? Get in touch with your local NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Solar System Ambassador.
🪐👩🏻‍🚀🚀🌛

Yeah, I didn't know about them, either! 🤯

Credit for this info nugget goes to Anne Marie Deas Bryan with Monroeville Main Street in Alabama. I heard her speak at a breakout session about Main Street science projects at this year's Main Street America conference:

Directory | Solar System Ambassadors – NASA Solar System Exploration NASA’s real-time science encyclopedia of deep space exploration. Our scientists and far-ranging robots explore the wild frontiers of our solar system.

Are you located on or near a designated U.S. scenic byway or historic highway? For the first time in years, we have a true national conference coming up this October in the City of West Memphis, Arkansas, thanks to The Great River Road / Mississippi River Parkway Commission and our clients at the National Scenic Byway Foundation. Would love to see you there!

2026 National Scenic Byways Conference - MRPC Members Join the Great River Road and the National Scenic Byway Association October 6-8 in Arkansas The National Scenic Byway Association (NSBA) and the Mississippi River Parkway Commission (MRPC), which promotes and preserves the Great River Road National Scenic Byway, are collaborating to offer the... Lea...

Collect data but don't drown in it. You can't know if you're meeting your tourism marketing goals unless you measure. My latest on the Tourism Currents blog:

How do you know what works? Data. - Tourism Currents® Collect data but don't drown in it. You can't know if you're meeting your tourism marketing goals unless you measure.

Pass to your tourism partners . . .

In case you missed it: Google Business Profile recently added a "Repeat" dropdown for Events and Offers posts. Whether it's Wednesday Trivia or Friday Happy Hour, you can now set it to update automatically on Search and Maps.

Why it matters:

Save Time: No more manual weekly updates. ⏳
Boost Traffic: Active profiles are 70% more likely to attract in-person visits. 📍
Stay Fresh: Keeps your "digital front door" timely with zero extra effort. 🔄

Next time you create a post, just select your frequency and let Google do the rest.

See how it works: goo.gle/42t751E

You know what AI can't blow up or control? Your email list. 🧐

"Years ago, we didn't fully appreciate how much historic Route 66 appealed to people, especially international visitors."

Sounds crazy, right? How could that be? I appreciated the honesty, though, because they're not alone in missing what seems obvious.

One of the excellent sessions at this year's Main Street Now Conference was How to Leverage Heritage Tourism for Revitalization and Economic Growth in Your Community, and it reminded me that overlooking one's own assets (big ones and small ones) happens ALL the time, in towns of every size.

Here are some ideas from the session to get you thinking about the power of preservation in your tourism marketing.

I follow Mari Smith for updates and insights into Meta products - here is her take on the new Instants feature from Instagram -

So Instagram has a brand new feature + brand new standalone app: "Instants." 🙄

📸 Instants, a new way to share photos in the moment with your Close Friends or mutual followers.
📸 Instants disappear after they’re opened by someone and can’t be viewed after 24 hours.
📸 You can access Instants through the Instagram app OR its standalone app that opens directly to the Instants camera.

Unlike Instagram, which is about curated and polished content, Instants is designed for quick, real-life snapshots. With Instants, you capture a photo with Instagram’s in-app camera and aren’t allowed to edit the image. The format doesn’t allow uploads from your camera, and, although you can add text to your “instants,” you can’t modify them any further. Meta said in a blog post that the idea behind this format is to share authentic moments as they’re happening. (from TechCrunch).

Eh, friends, the minute I saw this announcement earlier today on media sites, Meta, Instagram, and Adam Mosseri's reel... my mind was just like,

"Whatever!!!"

Hahaa! 😝😂 Sorry, not sorry.

Like, why?

Well, numerous reasons, no doubt.

1. Continue to attract younger demographics.
2. Compete with Snapchat.
3. Get users to share more raw, unedited content.
4. Cater to the decline in users sharing as much to their profile/grid.
5. Fuel the addiction to keep coming back to the app.
6. Increase time on site/app.
7. Keeping eyeballs glued to the screen = sell more ads.

Anything else you'd add?

And if you're already loving Instants, please enlighten us as to why. Lol. 😆

P.S. Post manually written by me, fingers on the keyboard. 👉🏻⌨️

What was your Page's most popular, most engaging post for last month? Mine is usually a photo, sometimes a colorful text post.