Destination Marketing Organizations and Tourism Boards: How They Run Influencer Campaigns

A destination marketing organization (DMO) — a national tourism board like VisitDenmark, a regional body like Wonderful Copenhagen, or a U.S. state tourism office like Travel South Dakota — is a structurally different buyer from a private brand. It's wholly or partly publicly funded, governed by a board that often includes politically appointed members, and measures success on visitor numbers and visibility rather than sales in a checkout. That changes how procurement, contracts and measurement all have to be handled.

What a DMO is — and how it differs from a private brand

A DMO markets a place, not a product. It exists at several levels: national organizations like VisitDenmark promote an entire country to international travelers; regional and local bodies like Wonderful Copenhagen promote a single city or region, often including business tourism and conferences; and in the U.S., each state runs its own office of tourism or tourism authority with its own marketing budget and board.

The decisive difference from a private brand isn't in the influencer collaboration itself — a press trip or a sponsored post looks the same from the outside — it's in who is paying, who has to account for the money, and what "result" actually means.

Why procurement rules change everything

As soon as an organization is wholly or partly publicly funded, it can fall under public procurement rules — and that includes an agreement with an influencer agency or an individual creator, if the value is high enough. Per Denmark's Danish Competition and Consumer Authority (Konkurrence- og Forbrugerstyrelsen, KFST), the following EU procurement thresholds apply to services contracts under the Danish Public Procurement Act (Udbudsloven) from 1 January 2026: DKK 1,044,400 for state authorities, and DKK 1,611,360 for regional and municipal authorities and "public-law bodies" — a category many national and regional tourism organizations fall into, since they're set up to carry out a task in the public interest and are (co-)funded by public money.

Once a contract's value crosses that threshold, the contracting authority generally has to follow the more extensive tendering procedures — a public tender, with set deadlines and transparency requirements — instead of simply negotiating directly with an agency or a creator the way a private brand can.

A concrete U.S. example shows the same mechanism at work. Travel South Dakota (South Dakota Office of Tourism) has published its own RFP document (No. 25RFP15823, deadline 13 February 2026) covering nine marketing components, including a dedicated "Organic Social Media & Influencer Marketing" track with an annual budget of approximately $1,000,000, inclusive of media and production costs. State law requires this type of contract to go out to tender every five years. It's the same underlying mechanism as Denmark's threshold rule — just a different number and a different statute behind it.

Practical implication for an agency or creator pursuing a DMO deal: ask early whether the expected value sits above or below the applicable threshold. Below it, a deal can often be agreed directly, much like with a private brand. Above it, expect a process measured in months, not weeks — with no guarantee it ends with the creator the DMO originally had in mind.

The press trip is a DMO's default format — with its own terms

See event activations, press trips and unboxing for the general breakdown of the format. For a tourism organization, the press trip isn't just one option among several — it's often the default format, because the whole product (the destination) can only really be experienced in person.

VisitDenmark's own page for creators and press is specific about what the organization does and doesn't provide: "To be considered for support, digital influencers must have a strong following in one or more of our key markets and alignment to our target audiences." At the same time, it states plainly that VisitDenmark does not cover hotel costs directly, but can instead "liaise with hotels to try to secure a media rate" — and that it does not cover airport transfers or other transportation. Creators seeking support are asked to apply by email with their name, where the coverage will appear, circulation/reach, and how they plan to travel to Denmark themselves.

That's a clear contrast with many private brands, which typically cover all costs of a press trip as a matter of course. A DMO's more limited offer ties directly back to the section above: public money has to be defensible, and a fully funded trip for one creator is harder to justify to a board than a media deal negotiated down through hotel partnerships.

Disclosure rules don't change because the sender is public rather than private. See influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU — a free trip or free access is a commercial connection whether it comes from a private company or a publicly funded tourism organization.

A real campaign example: VisitDenmark and Icelandair

In August 2025, VisitDenmark and Icelandair ran the "Double the Wonder" campaign, aimed at Gen Z and Millennial travelers in the U.S. Northeast, using Icelandair's stopover program as the mechanism for pitching a two-in-one trip to Iceland and Denmark. The campaign was run by creator agency Steller, which has published its own case study on the collaboration.

Per Steller's own case study, four named North American creators took part, and their content was turned into 145 pieces of social content connected to an interactive planning and booking journey, with each post linking to a video-based itinerary featuring the creator's own recommendations. The reported results — 23.5 million impressions (nearly three times the goal), 1.4 million total reach, 722,698 video views, a $1.66 CPM, 11% of destination-page visitors starting to plan a trip, 396 itinerary requests, and an estimated $1.2 million in earned media value — are Steller's own agency-reported figures, not an independently audited measurement. Stine Lundov, Marketing Manager at VisitDenmark, is quoted in the same case study discussing the collaboration, confirming VisitDenmark's own participation in the campaign.

Notice which numbers serve as the success metric: impressions, reach, itinerary requests and estimated media value — not trips sold. That's exactly the difference the success-metric row above points to, and a direct consequence of there being no purchase to track when the product is "visit Denmark" rather than an item in a webshop. See how to measure influencer marketing when you can't track everything for the general approach to this kind of measurement.

No comparably documented, named influencer campaign from a regional Danish body such as Wonderful Copenhagen or a local destination company was found in this research pass — worth stating honestly rather than assuming the same model automatically applies at the regional level.

The shift toward long-term ambassador programs

Agencies specializing in destination marketing report a move away from one-off campaigns and toward longer-running ambassador programs. Evok Advertising's own 2026 destination influencer marketing guide describes structures running "12 to 24 months" with "two to four trips per year" and a portfolio of "10 to 20 creators across seasons and interest niches" to spread the risk if any single campaign underperforms. That's the agency's own recommendation and experience — not an independently measured comparison proving the model outperforms one-off campaigns — but the pattern matches the general logic in how to run an influencer ambassador program: a sustained relationship builds more credible attachment to a place than a single sponsored post.

For a DMO, the model has an added advantage: a portfolio of 10-20 smaller creators spread across seasons (summer, fall, winter break, spring) matches a public organization's need to show activity year-round — not just in peak season — better than one large campaign with a few big names.

A U.S. consumer survey on influencers' role in travel choice

A Data Axle survey conducted by Dynata in March 2025, among 1,000 U.S. consumers aged 18 and older, found that 39% of respondents said travel influencers have some sway over their destination choice, and that 57% overall said influencers have at least some impact on where they travel. These are U.S. consumer survey figures from a single study — not a Danish or European measurement — and should be read as such.

What a DMO should put in the contract

Most of the points in what to put in an influencer contract apply here too, but three deserve specific attention for a publicly funded tourism organization:

• Longer usage rights on photo and video material — a DMO often reuses the same material across several years of campaigns, not just the one season it was created for. Agree a usage period that matches that, not a standard 6-12 month license.
• Exclusivity against competing destinations, not competing products — where a private brand typically asks for exclusivity against a product category, a DMO will typically ask that the creator not simultaneously run a sponsored post for a directly competing destination in the same travel window.
• Reporting requirements that match public accounting — a DMO often has to document results to a board or a ministry, so agree upfront which figures (impressions, reach, press mentions, estimated economic impact) the creator or agency will deliver after the campaign, and how often.

Decision framework

Worked example: cost per piece of content in a hypothetical ambassador program

The following is an invented example for illustration only — not an actual Make Influence client engagement or a documented DMO budget. It reuses the same illustrative per-trip cost (DKK 10,300) as the article on event activations, press trips and unboxing, to keep the calculation consistent across the Academy.

Assume a DMO builds an ambassador program with 8 creators, each visiting the destination twice a year, where each visit costs DKK 10,300 in travel, accommodation and meals (no fixed creator fee, in line with VisitDenmark's own model) and produces 4 pieces of content per visit.

DKK 2,575 per piece of content says nothing about how many travelers it actually reaches — it's purely an illustration of what the cost structure of a press-trip-based program looks like once spread across everything the program produces.

Make Influence's operational perspective

Make Influence's core model is built around a trackable link or discount code tied to an actual purchase in a webshop — that's how a sale and a commission get tied back to a specific creator. A tourism organization doesn't sell a product with a checkout; it sells a visit that may happen months or years later and never register as a measurable click. We don't offer a solution built for this kind of destination marketing today, and it's worth saying that plainly rather than assuming our model transfers directly. That doesn't make the work any less relevant to understand — it's a different problem from the one Make Influence's tracking is built to solve.

FAQ

Can you just contact VisitDenmark the way you'd contact a private brand?

Partly. VisitDenmark has its own contact process for creators and press via email, requiring evidence of audience and reach — but the organization doesn't cover hotel or transport itself as a matter of course, only potentially a brokered media rate through a hotel.

Does a DMO always have to run a public tender to use influencers?

No — only if the contract's value reaches the applicable threshold under Denmark's Public Procurement Act (DKK 1,044,400 for state authorities, DKK 1,611,360 for regional/municipal authorities and public-law bodies, from 1 January 2026). Below the threshold, agreements can often be made more directly.

Do disclosure rules apply differently to a public tourism organization than to a private brand?

No. The commercial connection — a free trip, free access or payment — triggers the same disclosure duty regardless of whether the sender is a private company or a publicly funded organization.

Have regional Danish tourism companies like Wonderful Copenhagen run named influencer campaigns of their own?

No documented, named campaign from a regional Danish body was found in this research pass. The confirmed Danish examples are VisitDenmark's own creator criteria and the VisitDenmark-Icelandair campaign, both of which are national, not regional.

How does a DMO measure ROI when there's no purchase to track?

By using proxy metrics — impressions, reach, itinerary requests, press mentions and post-visit surveys — instead of a click-to-purchase model. See how to measure influencer marketing when you can't track everything for the general approach.

Can Make Influence help a tourism organization run a campaign?

Not today — our model is built to track a specific purchase via a link or discount code, and that doesn't exist in the same form when the product is a visit to a destination rather than an item in a webshop.