Destination marketing organizations’ (DMOs) personalization efforts are slowing in 2026.
In a recent report from travel marketing specialist Sojern, most DMOs globally said personalization remains a goal, but progress has stalled, even as data and targeting improve.
Forty-five percent of DMOs described their personalization efforts as “moderate” in 2026, down from 53% in 2025, while 22% said their efforts are “basic,” up from 14% last year. Fewer DMOs have reached the advanced stage as well, with 13% reporting this level of personalization in 2025 and just 9% reporting the same in 2026.
“This shift points to deeper capacity challenges,” Sojern’s State of Destination Marketing 2026 report reads. “Scaling personalization requires more than intent. It takes clean, connected data, the right tech stack and enough people to put insights into action.”
Sojern pointed out that infrastructure and data are the main personalization roadblocks. Many DMOs are still relying on third-party sources for data and using broad demographic targeting for campaigns, making it more difficult “to create the kind of emotional relevance travelers expect.”
Cost to obtain better data can present another barrier, as is having the internal expertise to apply it—in 2026, more than one third of DMOs have teams of 10 or fewer full-time employees.
Content creation is a crucial aspect of personalization and also a challenge for DMOs—right up there with budget limitations and demonstrating clear ROI—and DMOs have enlisted artificial intelligence (AI) to help.
Approximately 66% are using the tech to create content, while 51% have adopted it for data analysis and insights. The latter figure represented a significant jump, with adoption growing from 28% to 51% from 2025 to 2026.
AI concerns
While being leveraged as a tool, DMOs reported concerns about the impact of generative AI.
Roughly one third (32%) said they're very concerned about gen AI, while 42% said they're somewhat concerned. Just 7% said they’re not concerned, while 19% reported that they’re “actively developing a response strategy.”
In terms of their websites, 31% believe they’ll remain a “source of truth” for AI tools to source from.
With that in mind, 64% of DMOs said their content is written in formats that are easily structured for AI tools to find and summarize. Keeping partner listings up to date (43%), building editorial relationships to earn visibility (36%) and watching where content appears in AI-generated results (34%) were other top visibility strategies.
Content variety and audience are top of mind as well, with DMOs largely focusing on short-form videos (76%), articles matching services (72%), local stories or blogs (71%), lists or ranks (66%) and answers to common questions (64%). The most engaged audiences were cited as adventure and outdoor enthusiasts (59%), family travelers (57%) and cultural and heritage tourists (51%).
Managing, tracking strategies
When it comes to managing full-funnel strategies, 49% of DMOs globally identified tracking and attribution as their barrier in 2026, up from 37% in 2025.
“Yes, you drove impressions ... but we also had a PR article, ran our own social ad and held a competition. We don’t know which had the biggest influence,” Jamari Douglas, VP of marketing for the Bermuda Tourism Authority, said in the report.
Budget allocation was cited as the second most challenging aspect. The amount of DMOs citing this issue more than tripled from last year to this year, up from 15% to 47%, respectively.
DMOs also reported pressure when managing their long-term marketing strategies, largely due to changes in consumer behavior (reported by 80% of global DMOs), destination and product developments (65%), national and global economic conditions (59%), technological advancements (53%), local economic conditions (41%) and policy and regulatory changes (23%).
Sojern’s annual report included survey responses from approximately 360 professionals actively engaged in travel or tourism-focused marketing promoting a specific region or destination.