West Virginia Tourism Is Building Something Real: Here’s What I Saw at Hospitality University

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending the 16th annual Hospitality University conference presented by the West Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association. With the renowned Greenbrier as the backdrop, I left with more than just notes.

Over 300 tourism professionals, community leaders, educators and advocates gathered to take stock of where West Virginia tourism stands and, more importantly, where it’s going. The numbers alone are worth celebrating: more than $9 billion in traveler spending, a record-breaking year for the industry and an 87% return visitor rate that speaks to something no marketing campaign can manufacture on its own. People aren’t just visiting West Virginia; they’re coming back.

But here’s what I kept thinking about on the drive home: The numbers are the result of the work, not the work itself. What I saw at Hospitality University was a talented group of storytellers doing the work of turning our communities into destinations.

A West Virginia Municipal Perspective 

One of my favorite sessions brought together the Mayor of Fayetteville, West Virginia, Sharon Cruikshank; the City Manager of Moundsville, West Virginia, Rick Healy; and the Mayor of Elkins, West Virginia, Jerry Marco. The panel discussed how communities become destinations and was moderated by the Mayor of Charleston, West Virginia, Amy Shuler Goodwin. It’s a question I think about a lot in my own work and one that doesn’t have a clean, universal answer.

What struck me most was the honesty in the room. These aren’t people talking about tourism in the abstract. They’re in it. They’re navigating budget realities, community buy-in and the complex work of building something that serves both visitors and the people who live there year-round. That tension between marketing a place and truly developing it is where the most interesting strategic conversations live.

From Classroom to Community

The session on student learning and West Virginia tourism was one I didn’t expect to hit as close to home as it did. Hearing about Nature’s Mountain Classroom in Pocahontas County stopped me. What they’re building there, connecting young people to the land, to their community and to the tourism economy in a meaningful way, is genuinely inspiring. When we cultivate a real appreciation for West Virginia in the next generation and open their eyes to the possibilities of careers in tourism, we’re not just investing in an industry — we’re investing in a brighter future for the state itself. And it’s clearly resonating beyond the conference room. I know firsthand that some of our partners are already exploring what something like this could look like in their own destinations, and that’s exactly how good ideas are supposed to work.

AI Search Strategies for Destinations and Tourism Businesses

The session I’m still thinking about most was the presentation from Destiny Workman from the West Virginia Department of Tourism and Kim Parlmer from Miles Partnership. The data confirmed what we’ve already been seeing firsthand: a 25% decrease in organic search traffic, driven by AI-generated search results and continued algorithm shifts. Basically, the digital landscape has changed so dramatically that it’s almost miraculous when someone finds your website through a traditional search anymore. It’s why our team guides our partners through findability, a strategy that goes beyond traditional SEO to help destinations show up wherever their audience is actually searching. [Sarah Powell digs into exactly what that means and why it matters here.]

This isn’t new territory for us at Digital Relativity. We’ve watched this shift play out across our partners’ analytics, and we’ve been having honest conversations about what’s driving it and what to do about it long before it made a conference agenda. Today, we’re actively working with partners to rethink their content strategies — not just for traditional search engines and users, but for the AI-driven environments that are increasingly shaping how people discover destinations.

Hearing it validated with real data in a room full of destination marketers was a good reminder of why these conversations matter. The destinations that are going to thrive aren’t the ones waiting for the algorithm to sort itself out. They’re the ones who start adapting now.

Why Showing Up Matters

I’ll be honest, conferences can be easy to deprioritize when your to-do list doesn’t stop. But Hospitality University reminded me why being in the room matters. You hear things you wouldn’t have found in a report. You have conversations that shift how you think. You have the opportunity to network with partners and professionals in the space we all love to nerd out about. You leave with a clearer sense of what’s actually happening in the industry, and what our partners need from us because of it.

West Virginia tourism is having a real moment. The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve was recently named the most underrated travel destination in the country, but this shouldn’t be news to anyone here. As Adam Stoker, host of the Destination Marketing Podcast, said during his “The Risk of Playing It Safe” presentation at the conference, West Virginia is the underdog. We always have been. The momentum is there. The numbers back it up. Now the work is making sure the strategy matches the opportunity.

I’m already looking forward to next year.