7 Reasons Why Destinations Need to Work with Podcasts

Podcasting is more than just true crime and celebrity entertainment. It’s a wave of untapped potential for DMOs looking to share their stories in unrivaled ways.

Audiences are tuning in—massively. In the U.S. alone, 73% of Americans report listening to podcasts in both audio and video formats. Long-form audio storytelling offers new ways to build trust with these audiences and convert them to travelers. 

Like Substack, podcasts are surging as the next highly effective tools that DMOs must stop ignoring. It’s time for your DMO to dust off the microphone and press record. These seven reasons make clear why today is the day to build your podcasting strategy:

1. Podcasts Play During Unique Moments

Podcasts are fundamental digital companions during moments when trip dreaming and planning naturally happen. Whether commuting, jogging or actively traveling, tomorrow’s travelers are listening.

Unlike social posts that disappear in a scroll, podcast episodes engage listeners for 20–60 minutes. That’s an incredible amount of uninterrupted attention for long-form storytelling. It invites nuanced conversations and interviews with local voices who bring your destination to life.

With a podcast, you’re not popping up between cat videos. You’re inside someone’s headphones during their most focused time of day.

2. Conversations Change Destination Perception

Research on travel podcasts shows podcast conversations can improve a traveler’s perceived image of a destination and positively influence intention to visit. Other studies on host-guest interactions show that engaging destination-focused conversations significantly increase interest in travel. 

A thoughtful conversation between a trusted host and a knowledgeable guest about your destination does more than inform audiences. It reshapes how they see you and can counterbalance sensationalist news or misperceptions.

Improved perception becomes a precursor to action: saving, sharing or finally booking. If your brand lives only in text and static visuals, you’re missing a powerful layer of emotional persuasion.

3. Podcast Audiences Are Attractive Travel Segments

Podcast audiences reflect the travelers many destinations crave. In 2024, podcast listeners skewed employed, educated and more likely to own homes than the general U.S. population. Monthly listening is growing across all age groups, with particularly strong loyalty among 12–54-year-olds.

These are people with disposable income, curiosity and the habit of regularly investing time in content they care about. That’s exactly who you want considering a long-haul trip, a special-interest itinerary or a higher-yield experience.

4. Hosts Provide Trusted Voices

The magic of podcasts relies on its relationship building. Listeners often feel as if they “know” the hosts they follow. When a trusted host shares what surprised them in your destination, it feels less like advertising and more like advice from a friend.

For destinations, this intimacy translates into higher-quality consideration. It invites deeper storytelling as hosts explore context, nuance and complexity that cannot fit in a 20-second reel. 

Clever ads buy attention. Good podcasts tap into established credibility and put it to use.

5. Metrics Are Getting Better

Traditional measurements like counting link clicks on a paid social campaign rarely translate easily to podcasts. Downloads don’t equal listens and not every mention comes with a trackable URL. Demonstrating podcast success, however, is still entirely possible.

Industry tools and standards now support better episode-level analytics, listener demographics and campaign tracking. You can use vanity URLs, unique offer codes and dedicated landing pages to attribute spikes in traffic, newsletter sign-ups or guide downloads to specific podcast placements. 

The metrics may be messy at times, but it’s a small hurdle to access the massive influence podcasts offer.

6. Podcasts Are More Than Ad Buy

DMOs can integrate podcasts into their existing PR and content strategy by pitching destination leaders, chefs or guides as podcast guests on existing shows. A dedicated podcast built by your DMO isn’t entirely necessary.

Partner on mini-series or special episodes around big anniversaries, new airlift, major events or seasons. By using podcasts as a thought leadership platform for responsible tourism, community benefit or sustainability stories, your destination can go deeper than any press release.

Think of podcasts as high-impact, long-form interviews with built-in distribution.

7. Cost of Waiting vs. Cost of Experimenting

Destinations were slow to adopt social media, then spent years trying to catch up. The same pattern is now playing out with audio. Audio accounts for a meaningful slice of Americans’ daily media time, with about 10% of their audio day spent on podcasts.

Travel-specific and tourism-industry podcasts are proliferating, providing ready-made audiences you don’t have to build from scratch. Destinations that sit on the sidelines miss out on early-mover opportunities with hosts and shows that are still accessible.

Podcasting provides a playground to test formats, messages and spokespersons in a relatively forgiving environment. They yield valuable insight about what long-form stories resonate with target markets.

In other words, by the time the metrics are as neat as you want, the space will be crowded and expensive.

And Remember…

You don’t have to go all in immediately. But you do need a plan that’s bolder than, “We’re considering it.” Map your audience and themes and build a target podcast list where you think your destination resonates. Develop a “podcast-ready” media kit with speaker bios, talking points and storylines generated for audio.

Set directional KPIs and focus on number and quality of appearances and any spikes in destination search, web traffic or guide downloads around air dates. Register all qualitative feedback like DMs, inquiries and stakeholder reactions instead of just chasing numbers.

And pair podcasts with other channels in your blog posts and social snippets to squeeze more value out of each appearance.

The Bottom Line

Podcasts are where future visitors—and the people who influence them—spend serious time. They’re powerful engines for trust, long-form storytelling and destination image-building.

Audience attention is fragmented and trust is scarce, but travel publicists that learn to use podcasting now will have a powerful edge in shaping how travelers feel about their brand long before they book.

Thinking about pushing the record button? Get in touch with Karyl Leigh Barnes at karyl.barnes@old.aboutdci.com to start a fresh conversation about your DMO’s podcasting future.