Your Hotel Has Empty Rooms. Who Is Selling the Destination?

The tourism board may be able to help with your next campaign or even your next event. But first, it needs a reason to get involved.

By the third meeting about a slow month, the suggestions start to sound familiar. Increase the advertising budget. Send another offer. Call the tour operators. Perhaps lower the rate.

Someone eventually asks: “What is the tourism board doing?”

It is a fair question. A hotel can improve its website, train its reservations team, and create a thoughtful package, yet still struggle when travelers are choosing somewhere else to go. Even a beautiful property has to sell the place around it.

But there is another question worth asking in that meeting: When did we last speak to the tourism board and what did we bring them?

That conversation can uncover more than a place in a brochure. It may lead to media introductions, shared campaigns, travel advisor visits, or a discussion about supporting an event.

The work that happens before a booking

Tourism boards give destinations a voice. They help explain why a place deserves someone’s vacation days, travel budget, or next business event.

Their responsibilities vary. Some focus on promotion, while others also support visitor services, tourism development, or the meetings industry. They may operate nationally, regionally, or at city level, under names such as destination marketing organizations, convention bureaus, or tourism authorities.

VisitBritain, for example, describes activities involving international travel sellers, media engagement, tourism research, and business events. These provide several ways for local businesses to connect with potential visitors and the people who influence their decisions.

A hotel’s marketing team is responsible for making its property desirable. The tourism board helps build interest in the destination that surrounds it. When their plans align, both have a stronger story to tell.

What can they actually do for your marketing and PR?

The opportunities become clearer when hotels move beyond asking for “exposure” and identify the specific help they need.

Tourism board activityHow it can complement a hotel’s strategyDestination media outreachCreates opportunities to include a hotel’s people, experiences, or news in a wider destination story.

1. Press trips Gives visiting journalists opportunities to experience participating properties and interview relevant people.
2. Travel advisor and tour operator visits Helps sellers understand which guests a hotel suits and how to recommend it.
3. Trade shows and sales events Opens conversations with buyers and potential distribution partners.
4. Destination advertising and cooperative campaigns Builds interest in visiting the area and may offer eligible hotels a way to participate.
5. Destination websites and promotional content Provides additional discovery through itineraries, features, or hotel offer listings.
6. Research and industry resourcesHelps inform decisions about source markets, campaign timing, and visitor interests.

These activities are reflected in the published work of organizations including VisitBritain, Brand USA, and the Mexican Caribbean, although each offers a different mix of support.

For a PR team, the distinction is practical. The hotel might pitch its restaurant; the tourism board can help place that restaurant within a broader conversation about the destination’s food culture.

For a marketing team, a destination campaign may create the initial interest. The property’s offer, website, and reservations team then need to turn that interest into a stay.

Give them something worth talking about

Imagine two emails arriving at a tourism board.

The first announces that a hotel has spacious rooms, excellent service, and a special rate.

The second introduces a cook who has spent years preserving her grandmother’s recipes and now welcomes guests to a small weekly dinner. It includes her story, photographs, available dates, and a contact who can answer questions.

The second email gives the destination a person, an experience, and a reason to pay attention.

Hotels sometimes underestimate what they already have. A long-serving guide, a local artist, a thoughtful accessibility initiative, or a meaningful connection with the surrounding community may offer a stronger story than another photograph of an empty pool.

The experience needs substance, however. It should be ready to receive guests, accurately represented, and easy to book. The tourism board needs reliable material; the traveler needs the experience to live up to it.

Do tourism boards have money to support an event?

Yes—some have dedicated event funding or sponsorship budgets. Others may offer promotional support, introductions, or resources instead of cash.

The important distinction is why they would participate. A hotel wants ticket revenue, room nights, and a successful event. A destination organization needs to understand what the event contributes to the wider place.

Will people travel specifically to attend? Stay overnight? Spend at local businesses? Discover the destination through meaningful media coverage? Does the event strengthen a quieter period or introduce an experience the destination wants to be known for?

Those questions turn an event proposal into a tourism proposition.

Leisure Events Fund, for example, supports qualifying events with tourism potential. Its published assessment criteria include foreign visitation, tourism receipts, distinctive programming, destination profile, local engagement, and sustainability. Eligible costs can include certain third-party production, marketing, and professional services expenses. Funding is subject to assessment and is disbursed through reimbursement against qualifying costs and agreed deliverables.

Tourism Western Australia also publishes event sponsorship programs designed to increase visitation, visitor spending, and destination visibility. Its major events program covers categories including sport, culture, arts, and culinary events.

These are examples of established funding models for events in those destinations. They do not establish that another tourism board has an equivalent budget—or that a hotel event automatically qualifies.

What kind of partnership should a hotel ask for?

A useful proposal separates the support being requested.

Support to discuss

1. Cash sponsorship or a grant Whether an eligible program exists, what costs it covers, and what outcomes and reporting it requires.
2. Shared marketing investment Whether the organization can contribute to an agreed campaign promoting the event and destination.
3. Promotion through existing channels Whether event listings, editorial content, newsletters, or social promotion are available.
4. Media and trade introductions Whether relevant journalists, travel sellers, or meeting planners can be introduced or considered for a visit.
5. Support in kind and partner connectionsWhether the organization can help coordinate resources or introduce potential destination partners.

These are requests to explore, rather than benefits to assume. A board may be able to support one part of the proposal while having no authority or budget for another.

Timing matters, too. Singapore’s Leisure Events Fund specifies that projects must not have commenced when applying, including certain supplier commitments or payments. Tourism Western Australia asks for detailed major-event proposals at least 12 months before the event.

Approaching an organization after signing the artists and paying the production company may leave fewer options.

Bring the destination case, alongside the event budget

A proposal that says “We need help paying for a concert” leaves much of the argument unfinished.

A stronger proposal explains who will travel, why they will come, how long they may stay, and how the destination will benefit. It should include:

• The concept, dates, venue, and intended audience.
• Expected attendance, separating local guests from visitors.
• Estimated visitor room nights, with assumptions clearly explained.
• Marketing and PR plans, including the markets being targeted.
• The budget, confirmed contributions, and precise support requested.
• Deliverables and a plan for measuring actual results.

Room-night estimates need care. As a hypothetical example, 200 visiting attendees staying two nights and sharing two people per room would represent approximately 200 room nights, assuming they all require paid accommodation. That is different from counting every attendee as a separate room.

For a hotel festival, culinary weekend, or wellness gathering, the wider itinerary can strengthen the proposal. Local restaurants, guides, artists, and transport providers may help demonstrate that the benefit extends beyond the hosting property.

What about an event in the Mexican Caribbean?

The Mexican Caribbean’s official industry platform provides resources for travel advisors, media, and the meetings and romance sectors. Its Vacation Specials platform also allows hotels and tourism providers to submit offers for review with booking links. Those are identifiable promotional opportunities.

A cash contribution for a particular hotel event would need to be confirmed directly. The published resources reviewed here do not establish an open event sponsorship fund comparable to the Singapore or Western Australian examples.

A hotel or organizer can still approach the destination organization with a complete proposal and ask which form of participation is possible: funding, shared promotion, media support, trade engagement, or partner introductions.

The conversation becomes easier when the request is specific and the destination benefit is credible.

Leading destination organizations worth knowing

These organizations illustrate different approaches to industry support. This is an editorial selection, rather than a ranking of performance.

OrganizationDestinationRelevant work

• Brand USA United StatesInternational cooperative marketing, digital engagement, and travel trade programs.
• VisitBritain / VisitEngland Britain internationally / EnglandTrade engagement, research, promotion, and tourism business resources.
• Tourism Australia AustraliaPartnership marketing, educational visits, trade activities, and business events promotion.
• Singapore Tourism Board SingaporeIndustry partnerships, joint promotion, and qualifying event funding programs.
• Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism / Visit Dubai DubaiDestination resources and international travel trade engagement.
• Mexican Caribbean / Caribe Mexicano Mexican CaribbeanRegional promotion and resources for travel sellers, media, and industry partners.
• Tourism Western Australia Western AustraliaEvent sponsorship programs focused on visitation and destination benefits.

Their official industry resources describe the activities summarized above. Hotels should begin with the organization serving their own destination and confirm current participation requirements.

The relationship needs someone to own it

An introduction will achieve little if nobody follows up. A campaign will struggle if its link leads to an outdated offer. A successful event partnership will be difficult to renew if the organizer cannot explain what it delivered.

Assign someone to keep the relationship active, share relevant news, understand participation deadlines, and collect results. Give the tourism board the same attention the hotel would give an important commercial partner.

Then, when someone asks what the tourism board is doing about a slow month, there is a better conversation to have: what can we build together, and what will each side contribute?

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