Lean Into Culture: A Mission for Every DMO and Tour Operator, Starting 2027
By Stefan Liautaud, Founder of LiveFrom631
There's a phrase I say more than almost any other. People who know me have heard it enough times that they say it back to me before I can say it myself.
Lean into culture.
Not "experience" culture. Not "observe" it, photograph it, or check it off a list. Lean into it. The language. The beliefs and values. The art, the food, the recreation, the symbols. The things a place holds onto that don’t fit neatly into a brochure.
I’ve spent this year writing about why the traveler has changed and why tourism keeps flattening the exact thing that made a destination worth visiting in the first place. This post is where I stop diagnosing the problem and start building the mission. Starting in 2027, “Lean Into Culture” isn’t just my personal mantra anymore. It’s the standard I’m asking every DMO, tour operator, and hospitality brand I work with to build toward. Before I bring this to travelers directly, I’m bringing it to the industry first, because the industry is where the story either gets told right or gets flattened before it ever reaches a traveler.
You Are the First Storytellers
Every destination has a marketing department, an agency, a social calendar. But before any of that existed, the story of a place already had its authors: the grandmother who’s made the same dish for fifty years without measuring anything, the guide who learned the trail from his father, the artisan whose pattern carries a meaning she didn’t invent and won’t dilute. Locals, guides, chefs, farmers, artists, shopkeepers, elders. They are the first storytellers. Every campaign, every reel, every “hidden gem” roundup is downstream of a story someone else was already living and already telling, long before a brand got involved.
This matters because it changes the job. A DMO’s job was never to invent a story about a place. It’s to have the humility to go find the story that’s already there, and the discipline not to sand it down until it’s easy to sell. When the first storytellers get pushed to the back, so a campaign can lead with a drone shot of a coastline instead of a face, the story stops being a story. It becomes inventory. Ninety-two percent of people trust word of mouth over traditional marketing, and yet the majority of marketers still fail to embrace storytelling as their core strategy. That gap is the opportunity. The first storytellers are standing right there. Most of the industry just hasn’t handed them the mic.
This is what “Lean Into Culture” asks of an operator: stop being the loudest voice in your own campaign, and start being the reason the actual storytellers get heard.
Why This, Why Now
I’m not asking the industry to do this because it’s a nice idea. I’m asking because the data has been screaming this for a few years now, and 2026 made it impossible to ignore.
Travelers are done with the postcard version. They want to know who lives somewhere, what those people care about, and whether visiting means participating in something or just consuming it. Booking.com’s most recent global research backs this up in plain numbers: 73% of travelers want the money they spend to go back to the local community, and 77% are seeking authentic experiences representative of local culture, with 69% wanting to leave a place better than they found it. That’s not a niche segment. That’s the traveler now.
At the same time, the industry is finally being honest about where the old model breaks. Eighty percent of international travelers visit just 10% of global destinations, which is why Venice, Barcelona, and Dubrovnik are capping visitors and charging entry fees. That’s not a tourism collapse. It’s a redistribution problem, and culture-first storytelling is one of the only tools that can actually solve it, because it gives travelers a reason to go somewhere other than the same ten places everyone’s already seen on their feed.
DMOs that are getting this right are already proving the model works. Iceland’s “Inspired by Iceland” campaign leaned entirely on locals sharing their own stories, and emotional storytelling drove 27% better outcomes than traditional promotion, with visitor numbers exceeding forecasts by 27% the following year. Jamaica ran the same play internally first: workshops that trained more than a hundred community-based tourism operators in storytelling and digital tools, which became the foundation for a national campaign built entirely around locally-led experiences. Hawaiʻi’s tourism board took the harder road of leaning into its overtourism conversation directly, building a campaign that balances education and inspiration through character-driven, community-led storytelling instead of pretending the strain didn’t exist. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the pattern.
The research world has caught up to what the first storytellers already knew: destinations that focus on storytelling that highlights local people, traditions, and values, not just landmarks, are the ones building something that outlasts a single campaign cycle. Community-led storytelling isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. It’s being described in the industry as a genuine competitive advantage, and a form of human-led substantiation that technology can’t replicate or commoditize.
What This Looks Like in Practice
“Lean Into Culture” isn’t a tagline you slap on a homepage. It’s an operating standard. Here’s what I’m asking DMOs and tour operators to actually build starting 2027, using the same five lenses I’ve always used to define the phrase:
Language. Stop translating your destination into the traveler’s comfort zone. Teach a phrase. Explain an idiom that reveals a worldview. Let your guides speak the way they actually speak, accents and all, instead of scripting them into something generic.
Beliefs and Values. Every destination has something it holds sacred, whether it’s a ritual, a relationship with land, or a code of hospitality. Don’t flatten it into “vibrant local culture.” Name it. Explain why it matters to the people who live it, not just what it looks like to the person visiting.
Arts and Recreation. Feature the craft, the dance, the sport, the game, and the person who’s kept it alive. Not as a photo op. As a relationship the traveler is being invited into.
Food. The meal is the story, not the menu item. Who cooks it, why, what the order means, what you never do at the table. This is where flattening happens fastest, and where leaning in pays off the most.
Symbols. Every color, gesture, or pattern in your destination’s visual identity means something to somebody. Find out what, and build your brand around the truth of it instead of a stock version of it.
Operationally, this means:
Hiring creative partners who understand story structure, not just people who can fill a shot list, because DMOs are shifting from simply promoting a destination to becoming experience architects.
Compensating and crediting the first storytellers directly. If a guide, farmer, or artisan is the reason your campaign has any truth in it, they should be paid and named like the creative partner they are.
Measuring content against emotional response and advocacy, not just reach. A traveler who becomes an advocate for your destination is worth more than a thousand impressions that convert no one.
Turning locals into community champions, not as a title, but as a mindset, because when residents feel equipped to share their community with pride, they become the most effective and sustainable tourism strategy available.
Choosing regeneration over volume. The operators winning trust in 2027 will be the ones who can show measurable contribution to the places they profit from, not just intention.
What This Means for You
For DMOs: this is how you stop competing on landmarks that ten other destinations can also claim, and start competing on something that literally cannot be copied, which is your place’s actual people and culture. It’s how you build advocates instead of just arrivals. It’s also, frankly, how you future-proof your funding, because boards want proof of resonance, not just reach.
For tour operators: this is your differentiation in a market where community-focused travel already produces 72% higher cultural understanding than conventional tours, and where community tourism has been shown to increase local incomes by up to 45%, reinvested straight back into the communities your guests are visiting. When you lean into culture, you’re not just building a better product. You’re building the kind of trust that turns a one-time customer into someone who tells everyone they know to book with you specifically, and no one else.
And for both: this is how the industry stops absorbing the same criticism I wrote about earlier this year, that tourism strips destinations of the very identity that made them worth visiting. The solution was never fewer visitors. It’s better systems, better education, and better alignment between what a destination markets and what a destination actually is.
The Standard, Starting 2027
I built LiveFrom631 on the belief that storytelling isn’t a marketing tactic. It’s the actual infrastructure of tourism. Every booking, every advocate, every returning traveler starts with a story someone told well, and usually, that someone was never in the marketing meeting.
Starting 2027, this is the standard I’m holding every project, partner, and client to. Lean into the language. Lean into the beliefs. Lean into the food, the art, the symbols, the people who’ve carried them longer than any of us have been in this industry. Find the first storytellers, hand them the mic, and build everything else around what they already know to be true.
That’s not a campaign. That’s a mission. And it’s the one I’m building the next chapter of my work around.
Next up: what “Lean Into Culture” looks like for the traveler, and a practical breakdown of how any destination or operator can start doing this immediately. If you’re a DMO, tour operator, or hospitality brand ready to build your story around your first storytellers instead of around them, that’s exactly the work LiveFrom631 does.
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