More Different Perspectives

Resident Sentiment: The Power of Perspective

For years, DMOs have known that resident sentiment matters. It shapes how visitors are welcomed, how tourism is discussed locally, and how successfully a destination can grow without friction. But too often, resident sentiment has been treated as a score to report—rather than a compass to guide strategy.
At Clarity of Place, we’ve seen across dozens of projects that when communities feel heard, destinations thrive. The question isn’t whether to measure resident sentiment, but how to reframe it so it becomes actionable, credible, and embedded in decision-making.
David Holder underscored this point during his recent panel at ESTO alongside three visionary destination leaders: Vanessa Cabrera of Visit Tucson, Beth Erickson of Visit Loudoun, and Eliza Voss of Aspen Chamber Resort Association. Together, they highlighted how true alignment goes far beyond survey scores or topline numbers. It’s about listening to residents, embedding their perspectives in decision-making, and showing that tourism success prioritizes real community impact.
(Ideas That Travel: Reframing Resident Sentiment panel featuring Vanessa Cabrera, Beth Erickson, and Eliza Voss ESTO 2025)
If you missed the session, this blog expands on the same core idea: moving beyond numbers to build genuine community alignment. That’s where we help destinations find clarity.
Why Reframing Matters
Resident sentiment is more than research. Done well, it:
Creates alignment with community priorities. Creating alignment with community priorities begins with listening. Residents surface what matters most — no matter whether it involves preserving a small downtown’s character, attracting overnight visitors who drive economic value, or managing visitor behaviors to ease cultural and environmental strain. As Eliza Voss noted at ESTO, Aspen applied resident input on visitor volume to adjust its marketing approach to seasonal shifts. When destinations center local perspectives in this way, they shape smarter strategies and build the trust needed for long-term support.
Strengthens the value of tourism. Resident perspectives help reposition tourism as a driver of quality of life, not just visitor growth. By showing how visitor dollars contribute to infrastructure, workforce, and local amenities, DMOs can reframe tourism as a shared community benefit. Visit Loudoun, for example, has used tourism’s value to address community concerns around land use, business vitality, and managing the pressures of rapid growth in a picturesque countryside.
Reveals opportunities for destination direction. Resident feedback isn’t only reactive — it points the way forward. Communities often surface insights that refine a destination’s long-term strategy, from diversifying funding to shaping new events and product development. In Tucson, resident sentiment helped reconnect longer-range strategies with community priorities, allowing Visit Tucson to leverage local goodwill in its vision of becoming a world-class destination.
Go Beyond the Survey
One survey won’t build alignment. The real shift comes from using sentiment as a bridge—asking residents how they experience tourism and showing how their perspectives shape strategy. When destinations close that loop, listening delivers trust, and trust fuels support for funding, product development, and what comes next.
When framed with intention resident sentiment can:
Shape messaging: Aligning campaigns with community values and organizational expectations, allowing marketing to reflect the destination’s authentic story.
Strengthen support: Demonstrate how tourism dollars contribute to community well-being, not just visitor counts.
Guide strategy: Use local perspectives to prioritize what really matters—whether that’s downtown vibrancy, workforce, or sustainability.
From Data to Alignment
When communities see their perspectives shaping decisions, the narrative shifts from “tourism is for outsiders” to “tourism supports us.” That’s where resilience is built.
At Clarity of Place, we believe reframing resident sentiment isn’t about seeking approval but creating durable partnerships with the people who define a place. Together with our colleagues at Longwoods International, whose Resident Sentiment Research sets the industry standard, we help destinations turn local perspectives into actionable strategies that balance resident priorities with business needs.
If your destination is asking how to reposition tourism’s value or use sentiment to chart a stronger future, let’s start that conversation.
Resident sentiment shouldn’t just be measured—it should be leveraged.

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What Is Community Alignment?

At Clarity of Place, we believe that a destination management organization (DMO) must achieve community alignment to be successful. But what is community alignment anyway, and why does it matter? 

Much like it sounds, community alignment happens when tourism’s direction aligns with its community’s overarching goals, wants, and needs for developing and nurturing its “place.” For example, if a community prioritizes protecting its natural resources, a DMO can support this goal. The DMO may promote eco-friendly attractions, target marketing to attract visitors during off-peak seasons to smooth out visitation, or create a visitor-focused campaign to stop littering.

Community alignment also means helping to generate enough visitor activity to support tourism-related businesses. It means celebrating what makes the destination different, ensuring the community maintains its character and residents maintain their quality of life, while providing visitors with an enjoyable experience.

What is community alignment?

Community alignment is essential to effective destination management. It helps ensure the visitor economy contributes positively to the place.

DMO leaders should understand the relationship between the visitor economy and the community, and they should share with community leaders how they are leveraging the visitor economy to support community goals. Otherwise, they will make decisions on how to manage the destination in a vacuum. Increasing visitation may cause stress to the community at certain times, and attempts to grow the visitor economy may stumble.

However, if DMO leaders understand how the visitor economy fits into their community, they can find areas of mutual benefit with community leaders, prioritize those, and help build a place that nourishes both visitors and residents.

Who benefits from community alignment?

When a DMO is attuned to community needs, tourism becomes a more integrated and appreciated part of the community. Everyone benefits:

  • Tourism-related businesses collaborate to offer a holistic suite of attractions, appealing to a particular demographic and psychographic that fits the community’s values. This understanding of place, and ability to target a particular market, helps them become more competitive against other destinations.
  • Community members feel valued and heard. Issues such as overcrowding are surfaced and are being addressed. New parks and recreation facilities raise resident quality of life. Local businesses are able to recruit and retain vital talent, which brings more success. Community pride improves as area attractions gain notoriety and visitors share accolades.
  • Visitors have a higher-quality experience. They can choose from more coordinated, relevant offerings. They may see fewer crowds and be able to make a more direct connection with your destination. They understand your community’s character, return for more visits, and recommend you to their like-minded friends.
How does a destination achieve community alignment?

Achieving community alignment is an intentional, collaborative process. These steps provide a guide.

  1. Understand your community’s concerns and desires. Consider government and business community initiatives, goals, and challenges. Is the community facing traffic jams at peak tourism times? Deciding how to implement a city master plan? Evaluating a large new project like a sports complex? Tourism touches all of these issues. 
  1. Understand tourism stakeholder and resident sentiment. What opportunities and challenges do tourism businesses and residents face? How can community entities help businesses? How does tourism affect residents’ daily lives? Interviews, focus groups, and surveys can elicit this information.
  1. Collect and analyze pertinent data. What does the data tell you about your community’s capacity? What percentage of crowding is due to visitors vs. locals? Are lodging properties and other tourism businesses facing seasonal peaks and valleys? What effect will larger tourism trends have on your community?
  1. Collaborate with community leaders. Share the sentiment and data that you have gathered and interpret what it means for your community. Work together to find solutions where tourism will be an important partner and contribute solutions that support your visitors, your tourism businesses, and your full community.
Learn More

The Clarity of Place team can help you identify how your destination fits within your community. To learn how, contact us. We can help you map out solutions that bring your DMO and your community together—for a strong visitor economy, happy community, and impressed guests.