Tourism CEOs: The Link Between Pay and Performance
Photo Credit: Times Square, New York City. Unsplash / Nelson Ndongala
Skift Take
CEOs at destination marketing organizations are compensated based on the economic impact they have. Independent research is needed.
Skift recently reviewed the pay for more than two dozen top bosses at U.S. destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and results varied widely: From less than $200,000 a year to more than $1.5 million — 14 made more than a half-million dollars in 2022, the most recent data available.
But determining a DMO's value isn’t clear-cut. One issue is that it’s difficult to assess how much credit a DMO should take for tourism. After all, there are several reasons a tourist may visit that have nothing to do with marketing.
It’s even harder to attribute results to the CEO.
“A core part of the job is to promote the destination, but I think that the question then is how much of the success is attributable to that particular CEO,” said Michele McKenzie, former CEO of Destination Canada. “I would be a bit wary of directly attributing a full economic impact to one person.”
As part of a CEO’s compensation review, a DMO’s
