Accreditation – Where Does Your Community’s DMO Stand?

Congratulations to the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau and the Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau on achieving accreditation to the best practices of community marketing, a distinction earned by just 115 Destination Marketing Organizations.

These counties are near Durham NC, whose Destination Marketing Organization (DMO,) led the way several years ago as the first in North Carolina and one of the first two dozen in North America to earn this distinction. Fayetteville and Charlotte DMO’s have also since earned accreditation giving North Carolina five.

I don’t blame DMO’s that shy away from accreditation. The one for DMO’s is much more rigorous than most and few achieve exemplary citations let alone the 11 that ties Durham with one other DMO with the most ever given.

No “good ole boy” pass either. For instance, Durham’s Shelly Green is now on the accreditation board but per policy recused from reviewing or commenting on the applications of direct competitors including Greater Raleigh (Wake County) or Chapel Hill/Orange County.

But I suspect more and more local officials are asking their DMO where it stands with accreditation and well they should. Who wouldn’t be reassured by knowing their community’s DMO has undergone a thorough, independent diagnostic. I sure would if I were an elected official, community or business leader.

In fact, every community’s business and civic leaders should wonder why every economic development-related isn’t accredited. There are reasons behind any inertia that should alarm every community’s leadership, even if it is just laziness.

While some are often private organizations, public money is often involved and regardless they represent the community in some way.

And if an organization’s management or leadership dismisses the importance of accreditation or says something stupid like, “wouldn’t you rather we just do our job?” then, uh, you know your community definitely has a much bigger problem than accreditation.