Some careers are a straight line. This one is more like a well-planned city walk: Boston to New York to London to San Francisco—with detours through Hilton, trade shows, early-SEO experiments, and the pre-internet era of taking “I ❤️ NY” on the road.
In this Q+A, TourismIQ’s Editorial Director Laurie Jo Miller Farr shares the throughline connecting decades in tourism and travel media, what’s changing in destination marketing now, and why “show up and contribute” is still the cheat code.
You’ve held roles from NYC Tourism to Hilton to travel media and now Editorial Director at TourismIQ. When you look back, what’s the thread that connects all those chapters?
Doing what you love! Once you’re bitten by the travel and tourism bug, it doesn’t let go.
What first drew you into tourism and destination marketing, and when did you realize you were really in the business of storytelling for places?
I was a tour guide in Boston during college, a public service provided by the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs. That was good practice for storytelling on your feet all day, every day. Then, on behalf of the New York City tourism office, I attended trade shows, held press conferences, met with airlines, tour operators, travel agents and travel writers all over the world. There was no internet in those days, so we took the story of The Big Apple and I ❤️NY on the road.
You’ve worked in New York, London, and San Francisco. How has living in iconic destinations shaped how you think about what makes a place compelling?
I’m an urban creature and I walk. A lot. Because these cities weren’t built for the automobile, they suit me best. I’m afraid of camping out under the stars but I’m comfortable being in a big city after dark.
How did you make the transition from VP-level sales jobs and marketing roles into a career centered on writing, editing, and content strategy?
After 25 years in London, I wasn’t sure how to handle a work transition back to the States. Noticing that Yahoo! was everybody’s email service and had a new hyper-local digital platform, I started contributing articles about San Francisco as a way of learning the city and meeting locals.
Teaching rudimentary SEO to myself was magic, and soon my basic how-to articles like “Packing for San Francisco’s Micro-Climates” would appear on Yahoo! landing page where they’d get views in the tens of thousands. For a former destination and hotel marketer, freelance travel writing felt like a natural shift from one side of the table to the other.
How do you describe TourismIQ in a sentence or two?
TourismIQ is a B2B community focused on Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and their vendors. We describe it as a place to connect with peers, get industry insights, share knowledge, and advance a career in tourism.
What gap in the tourism and destination marketing world convinced you that a platform like TourismIQ needed to exist?
Many of our readers and contributors followed “The Travel Vertical” weekly newsletter and podcast before they were sold and discontinued. As the go-to platform for our unique, tight-knit tourism community, readership soared during Covid. It’s clear that sharing best practices, case studies, job opportunities, people news, career development, and more is a space that needs to be filled, so we’re fortunate to have TourismIQ founded by Brand Revolt, a vendor.
As Editorial Director at TourismIQ, what does your day-to-day look like?
It looks like trend-spotting, innovation, job opportunities, people on the move, identifying thought leadership pieces, and publishing the stories we all benefit from hearing and sharing. In fact, “sharing” is the key word.
You’ve watched destination marketing evolve from pre-digital days to social media and now AI. What’s the biggest change in how destinations tell their stories?
True. I grew up in the industry with fax, telex, and Xerox machines. Destinations’ outreach budgets still were dedicated to print collateral and postage. By 2000, everyone was trying to get a handle on this digital stuff. Twenty-five years later, it’s funny to remember that the internet was mostly accessed via dial-up modem, it was early days at Google, and Mark Zuckerberg was still a high school sophomore.
From your vantage point, what are the biggest challenges DMOs are facing right now—and what gives you the most optimism?
Interesting question. A mini-think tank of destination marketing professionals tackled this a couple months ago at the first-ever “CMO Jam.” There was agreement around the idea that we must champion vision, not just volume.
Community sentiment—not numbers of heads in beds and website stats—is the new KPI. We can be optimistic that there are creative, forward-thinking leaders in our circle. And we can be optimistic about recent powerful marketing wins by destinations that didn’t come from ad campaigns, but rather from getting supportive buy-in from stakeholders and residents.
Many people romanticize “travel writing.” What do you wish they understood about the business side and the realistic paths into that work?
Travel writing involves sales. Sure, ideation and wordsmithing are key skills, but pitching is also a big part of the job. Plus, publications pay writers peanuts, so most freelance travel writers have other jobs, too.
If someone early in their career wants to get on the radar of industry leaders or communities like TourismIQ, what’s a smart way to show up and contribute?
The answer is in the question, actually. “Show up and contribute” is great advice. It’s really not scary out there…the tourism business is the toy box of life and the other kids are freely sharing their toys.
If you could go back and give one piece of advice to your younger self starting out at NYC Tourism + Conventions, what would it be?
Not waiting 10 years to move from tourism development at a nonprofit destination marketing organization to sales and marketing in the private sector at Hilton Hotels Corporation to gain different skills. Also, three words from my boss still ring in my ears, “Don’t assume anything.”
