Continuing Education Series
There are many opportunities to gain the knowledge, skills and education you need to be a tourism marketing professional, from Explore Minnesota's annual conference to the continuing education series below.
Questions about other learning opportunities? Please email or call your Industry Relations Representative.
Fall 2026 Webinars
Tuesday, Sept. 22 at 11 a.m.
What working with content creators really looks like
Working with content creators can feel like something everyone else has already figured out. This panel pulls back the curtain and shows what it actually looks like from every seat at the table.
During this panel discussion, Chris Lukenbill of Shrpa focuses on what works for small destinations, drawing on his experience from both the content creator side and the destination side. Hunter Meyer brings Visit Saint Paul's experience building and running creator partnerships. And Lindsey Ranzau, the travel writer behind Look About Lindsey, shares the creator's point of view: what makes a partnership worth saying yes to, and what makes content actually perform.
Whether you've never worked with a creator before or you're looking to dig deeper and sharpen what you're already doing, you'll leave with a clearer picture of how these partnerships come together and how to make them work for a destination of any size.
Meet our speakers
Chris Lukenbill is the Co-Founder and CEO of Shrpa, a platform that helps destinations collaborate with creators and leverage authentic user-generated content. He leads product strategy, growth, and partnerships, with a focus on improving how communities tell their stories.
Lindsey Ranzau is a travel writer and content creator who shares unique and attainable adventures in Minnesota, the Midwest, and beyond. She usually travels with her husband and two young kids in tow, sharing hidden gems, day trips, weekend getaways, and tips to making travel part of your lifestyle.
Caitlin Hannah is the senior digital strategist at Explore Minnesota, where she helps share the state’s social and digital presence and shares Minnesota’s destinations, experiences, and stories. She has more than a decade of experience in tourism and influencer marketing.
Tuesday, Oct. 20 at 11 a.m.
Place branding: Developing a stronger “why here” for your destination
- What do we mean by place branding vs destination marketing?
- What advantages can a place branding approach deliver?
- Why is it now more important than ever for your place champions to speak with one voice?
- How are places around the world benefitting from joined-up thinking around place reputation, place making, and place marketing?
Clare Dewhirst is the Founder and Director of City Nation Place, the global forum for the people and stories behind places.
City Nation Place creates connections and shares best practice between country brands, regional brands, and city brands around the world through articles, interviews, surveys, benchmarking reports, awards, the advisory group network, training, and conferences.
With more than ten years’ experience of chairing conferences around the world, interviewing place leaders, judging awards, and moderating advisory group discussions, Clare is now also one of our three trainers on the City Nation Place Accelerator course and is invited to speak on place branding to teams and events around the world.
Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 11 a.m.
Inbox to Inspiration: Email Marketing Tips and Tricks
How can a small tourism team create newsletters that audiences genuinely want to open - without adding more work to an already full plate? Using the Minnesota Star Tribune’s reimagining of its flagship Essential Minnesota newsletter as a case study, this session will explore how audience needs, content strategy and a distinctive brand voice can guide smarter email decisions. We’ll also consider when to launch, pause, seasonally adapt or sunset a newsletter; where AI tools can save time without sacrificing personality; and practical improvements attendees can begin using right away.
Jess Bellville is Head of Audience Strategy at the Minnesota Star Tribune, where she helps turn audience insights into newsletters, digital experiences and content that Minnesotans genuinely want in their lives. Previously, she spent nearly a decade at Twin Cities PBS leading brand, marketing, digital and audience initiatives - including a major rebrand, website transformation and new strategies for reaching people beyond traditional television. When she isn’t thinking about subject lines, audience habits or what makes someone click, Jess is usually exploring one of Minnesota’s best hiking trails with her husband and two Boxers, who are enthusiastic adventurers but unreliable navigators.
Joe Goetzke is the Executive Director of the Lanesboro Area Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center in southeast Minnesota. He also serves as Board Chair of Root River Trail Towns, a regional partnership connecting communities along the Root River State Trail system. Joe lives in Lanesboro with his wife, children, dogs, and chickens.
Past Webinars
Tammy Koerte (Longwoods International) and Dr. Jennifer Stoll (Cimarron Global Solutions) do an in-depth look at findings from the second annual National Resident Sentiment Towards Sporting Events study. This session presented both national and Midwest results, revealing how residents perceive the impacts of sporting events in their communities. Leave the session with data-driven insights that you can use to leverage sporting events in your communities.
Tammy Koerte is the Director of Research at Longwoods International, where she manages individual client research projects as well as Longwoods’ national studies on resident sentiment towards tourism and sporting events. She has extensive academic and professional experience in conducting and managing both quantitative and qualitative research.
Dr. Jennifer Stoll founded Cimarron Global Solutions in 2024, following the success of Stoll Strategies, which she launched in 2018. Known for her dedication to advancing the sport and tourism industry, Dr. Stoll excels in innovative research, communicating the value of sport and tourism, and providing strategic business advisory. Recognized worldwide, she guides clients toward impactful transformations through sport and tourism.
In a landscape crowded with look-alike campaigns and AI-generated “meh,” playing it safe has become the riskiest move destinations can make. This story-forward webinar explores how creative risk — when taken thoughtfully — can become a powerful growth engine for communities ready to stand out.
Hosted by Madden’s Senior Creative Director Katy Livingston and SVP of Brand Strategy Matt Stiker, this session challenges outdated norms in destination marketing and introduces a practical framework for evaluating creative risk, aligning stakeholders, and turning bold ideas into measurable results. You’ll walk away with real-world examples and actionable strategies to help your destination stop blending in, and start breaking through.
Katy Livingston brings more than a decade of creative leadership and a background in visual communications to her role as Senior Creative Director at Madden Media. She’s passionate about shaping thoughtful, effective work that helps ideas connect—both emotionally and strategically. Having led creative for destinations including Alabama’s Beaches and Discover Puerto Rico, Katy focuses on building campaigns that don’t just look great, but truly perform.
Matt Stiker is SVP of Brand Strategy at Madden Media, where he helps transform big ideas into brands with real impact. With half of his career spent in tourism and destination marketing—working with places like San Francisco, the states of Oregon and Idaho, and Portland, Maine—Matt brings a deep understanding of how creativity, collaboration, and strategy come together to drive growth. He’s especially passionate about helping destinations embrace bold storytelling while building internal alignment.
Every community has assets — but not every community is activating them to their full potential. In this session, Bandwango’s Mo Parikh will moderate a dynamic panel discussion exploring how communities can source, package, and activate their unique assets to encourage travel, tourism, and economic development.
From cultural and historical resources to outdoor recreation, local businesses, public art, events, and unexpected hidden gems, this conversation will highlight how destinations are creatively leveraging what they already have.
Mo will lead a panel of Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) who are using innovative and resourceful approaches to activate community assets. Panelists will share real-world examples of how they:
- Identify and inventory existing community strengths
- Turn underutilized assets into visitor experiences
- Build partnerships that unlock new tourism opportunities
- Use digital tools and trails to drive engagement and measurable impact
- Align tourism initiatives with broader economic development goals
Attendees will gain practical insights and replicable strategies for transforming everyday community features into compelling visitor experiences that increase visitation, extend stays, and support local businesses. Whether you represent a small town, regional DMO, or statewide organization, this session will inspire new ways to see — and activate — the assets already within your community.
From bioengineering labs to mountain towns and global destinations, Mo Parikh has always followed curiosity over convention. Originally trained as a bioengineer, he took an unexpected turn into travel and entrepreneurship, guided by a deep interest in how people experience the world. A lifelong traveler and snowboarder, Mo became fascinated by the ways people discover destinations, especially the hidden local gems that often go unnoticed.
That curiosity now shapes his work, where he blends teaching, entrepreneurship, and creative problem-solving to help organizations rethink experiences and deepen community impact. Whether exploring new ideas or new terrain, Mo is driven by the belief that meaningful experiences, like fresh powder, are worth seeking out. When he’s not working, he’s planning his next trip or waiting for the next snowstorm.
In this session, Freya and Xinyi will start with a brief introduction to agritourism, then share national trends in agritourism and the implications for Minnesota, highlights and insights from the two annual Agritourism Exchange events that UMN Extension hosts, how destination management organizations can work with agritourism operators, and resources that Extension offers for agritourism.
This webinar explores strategies for building tourism products that thrive outside the peak season. For many destinations, seasonality creates serious challenges — when visitor numbers rise and fall too sharply, the resulting imbalance can strain local economies and communities.
During this session, tourism professionals will gain insights into how partnerships, creative product design, and community collaboration can help smooth these fluctuations. The panel of experts will share practical tools and case examples to support off-season development, diversify tourism offerings, and reach niche markets.
The conversation will also highlight approaches to strengthening economic resilience and advancing sustainability in destination planning.
Featured speakers include Dr. Kristin Lamoureux, Professor and Director of the Masters in Hospitality and Tourism Mgt. at Virginia Tech University, and Simon Jones, founder of TourismWORKS and NatureScapes — two organizations dedicated to fostering the long-term sustainability of natural landscapes, seascapes, and the communities and cultures that depend on them.
Future Partners will unveil the latest insights into the evolving profile of American road trippers. Explore what drives their travel decisions, the experiences they value most, and the motivations behind their journeys. Gain a deeper understanding of how to effectively engage this influential audience — and uncover strategies to capture their attention and inspire their itineraries.
Join Erin Francis-Cummings from Future Partners to explore the latest data in road tripping.
Join August Erickson from Miles Partnership as he explains digital accessibility and its existing legal requirements. Erickson will share actionable steps your organization can take to ensure your website is accessible to those with disabilities. From guidelines to testing, Erickson will review techniques and tools to help you navigate the world of digital accessibility.
Organic search is constantly changing thanks to shifts in user behavior and new technologies. From Google's AI Overviews to voice search and AI Mode, SEO expert Dylan Scacchetti dives into SEO and GEO trends, impacts and strategies to help your destination or business navigate the changing landscape of organic search.