RTN Launches Self-Assessments for Destination Marketing Organizations with Personalized Reports
Two Free Tools to Help Rural DMOs Understand Their Technology Gaps and Collaboration Readiness
We've spent the past year talking to rural destination marketing organizations across the country — surveying more than 65 of them, listening to their challenges, and identifying specific challenges.
Two things come up almost every time.
The first is technology. Nearly every rural DMO we surveyed uses some form of analytics tool. Nearly none of them feel like they're getting real value from it. It's not that they lack tools; it's that the tools they have weren't designed for a two-person team managing outreach across six counties.
The second is collaboration. Most rural DMO directors we talk to want to do more of it. They can see what's possible: hard marketing, joint grants, regional itineraries that actually tell a whole story instead of stopping at a county line. But 80% of them cite capacity as the reason it hasn't happened yet. Not a lack of interest. Capacity.
We built two free assessments to help address both of these directly. Each one takes 10–15 minutes to complete, and within a few days of finishing, you'll receive a free personalized report from our team — specific to your organization, not a generic summary.
The DMO Technology Audit
The Technology Audit is a 15-minute self-assessment that helps your organization take honest stock of your current technology footprint — what you have, how well you're using it, and where the gaps are creating the most friction for your team.
It covers five workflow areas: visitor engagement, content management, data and reporting, partner coordination, and visitor experience tools. Based on your responses, you'll receive a personalized report that identifies your priority gaps, flags tools you already have but may be underutilizing, and maps specific feature recommendations to the tasks your team is struggling to keep up with.
This isn't a pitch for new software. It's a diagnostic designed to give you clarity on where a targeted investment of time or budget would actually move the needle, versus where you're already in good shape.
Complete the Technology Audit and receive a free report within a few days.
The Collaboration Readiness Assessment
The Collaboration Readiness Assessment is focused specifically on the collaboration question, where your organization stands today, what's in the way, and what a realistic first step looks like.
It looks at five dimensions of readiness: your existing relationships with neighboring DMOs, your team's current capacity, the infrastructure you have in place for working with outside organizations, your regional alignment, and whether your leadership is actively behind the idea.
Within 3–5 business days of completing the assessment, you'll receive a free personalized report from RTN, not a templated score, but a report written with your specific situation in mind. It will tell you where you land on the readiness spectrum, surface your biggest barriers, and lay out three concrete next steps sized to where your organization actually is right now.
Complete the Collaboration Readiness Assessment and receive a free report within a few days.
A Note on How We Built These
Both assessments are grounded in RTN's research with rural DMOs, the same research behind our 2025 State of Rural Tourism Report. The questions, the stages, the barrier lists, all of it was informed by what we actually heard from organizations like yours, not by what the textbooks say rural DMOs should look like.
That means the results should feel accurate. If they don't, tell us; we want to know.
Both assessments are free. Both reports are free. There's no catch and no sales pitch attached. If anything in your report prompts questions or you want to talk through what you're seeing, we're always happy to connect, but that's entirely up to you.
— Briana Konecke, Founder & CEO, Rural Tourism Network
