Many of my friends and family members know I’m a huge sports fan. I would almost rather watch live sports over almost any other form of entertainment. And one of the maxims of that world is that head coaches in bigtime college and pro sports face one of three inevitable fates: retirement, being poached by […]

For my friends in the Old North State…following a two-year absence, we’ve updated our new and improved annual study that reviews North Carolina lodging taxes and their investment across the state. We’ve produced this comprehensive report since 2013 and made it available free of charge to anyone who downloads it from our website: https://www.magellanstrategy.com/research/. It’s […]

I have a friend of mine who only vacations on cruise ships. Obviously, one has to love cruising in order to spend every vacation on the high seas or a navigable river. But his motivations go well beyond a fondness for exotic ports of call, sumptuous buffets, and flashy stage shows. He likes cruising because […]

I recently worked on a destination marketing organization client project that required research into comparative DMO budgets. The client was facing an imminent threat of reduced funding that would significantly reduce their competitiveness against their comp set, so understanding the financial resources available to their competition was essential for developing a case in favor of […]

Nearly a year ago, I wrote about the potential impending headache of the Currituck County occupancy tax lawsuit upon many North Carolina destination marketing organizations (DMOs). In late May, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of the county, saying that the occupancy tax statute did not categorically bar the county from spending tax […]

Many of the North Carolina destination marketing professionals reading this are likely already aware of the lawsuit filed in 2019 by a group of property owners in Currituck County, NC alleging that county government had misspent more than $40 million in lodging taxes intended for beach nourishment and other “tourism-related” purposes. The plaintiffs lost the […]