Many of my friends and family members know I’m a huge sports fan. I would almost rather watch live sports over almost any other form of entertainment. And one of the maxims of that world is that head coaches in bigtime college and pro sports face one of three inevitable fates: retirement, being poached by another team, or getting sacked. (Mostly getting sacked.) And if a coach is fired in season, they are almost always replaced by…”the interim.”

Some of you also know I am among the world’s biggest fans of my alma mater’s sports teams, the Vanderbilt Commodores. (It’s a relatively exclusive club, but all are welcome.)  I can answer trivia questions about Vanderbilt sports like nobody’s business. But even I am hard pressed to name the last interim football coach the Dores employed during my fandom, even though it was just six years ago. (The answer is Todd Fitch, by the way. I had to look it up.)

I’ve now had the opportunity to be the interim leader of two organizations during the last seven years of my career, Explore Asheville in 2020 and Southeast Tourism Society for the first part of 2026. Both stints came during challenging times in those organizations’ histories. But I went into both jobs with clear eyes, a full heart, a commitment to doing my best, and the realization that much like interim coaches in the sports world, at the end of the day the only thing people really care about is for you not to screw it up. Because much like me and my alma mater’s interim coaches, no one will remember you past day one of the new leader’s tenure.

Which is how it should be. Vic Isley has done a great job for Explore Asheville since taking the reins in late 2020, and Nan Marchand is an inspired choice to be STS’ next leader. They are visionary thinkers, and that’s a big part of the job. The interim’s role is more triage physician in the ER at 3:00 AM. Apply immediate care to the critical victims, make sure the team is performing, and leave the many patients upstairs in the hospital rooms to the experts coming on shift at 7:00 AM.

There are always opportunities to go above and beyond, of course. On my first day as interim at Explore Asheville, I introduced myself via e-newsletter to our community partners and told them I was donating half my salary during the pandemic.  It was the right thing to do during a time of crisis. (It probably also made some people think I was massively overpaid if I was capable of that sacrifice.) But much like the ER doc doing her best work at 3:00 AM, hardly anybody took notice.

And that’s okay. Like most interim leaders, I didn’t do it for fame and fortune. Of course there are those who see it as an audition for the top job, and many interim CEOs have gone on to bigger roles at their organizations or elsewhere. Given the leaders who were eventually hired at both places, I made the right decision not to pursue either permanent job. But great interim leaders work just as hard regardless of whether they wish to be considered for the permanent role. They know, however, there are certain changes that are best left to the new CEO. That’s not laziness or timidity. It’s the recognition that substantial organizational change and strategic direction should be implemented in alignment with the new CEO’s vision. That doesn’t mean interim leaders can’t make significant contributions towards strengthening the viability of the organization and creating stability for the new leader while remaining faithful to its mission.

I don’t know if I’ll get another career opportunity to be an interim CEO. It’s not something one actively seeks out on Indeed or LinkedIn. But the next time you’re a part of an organization with an interim leader–and you will be, as a board member, stakeholder, or employee–give that person your full support and confidence. Don’t dismiss them as “just the interim.” Good interim leaders know their place, but they are also just as committed to the organization as the permanent CEO. (I was fortunate to have great board support in both of my interim jobs.)

(And please show your support of Southeast Tourism Society and new President and CEO Nan Marchand by registering for and attending this year’s STS Connections event in Richmond, September 9 -11. It will be a good time.)

For my friends in the Old North State…following a two-year absence, we’ve updated our new and improved annual study that reviews North Carolina lodging taxes and their investment across the state. We’ve produced this comprehensive report since 2013 and made it available free of charge to anyone who downloads it from our website: https://www.magellanstrategy.com/research/. It’s a helpful guide to understanding the many issues surrounding occupancy taxes in the Old North State and how that revenue is utilized. It’s also a very helpful sleep aid.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or discover any errors or omissions.

I have a friend of mine who only vacations on cruise ships. Obviously, one has to love cruising in order to spend every vacation on the high seas or a navigable river. But his motivations go well beyond a fondness for exotic ports of call, sumptuous buffets, and flashy stage shows.

He likes cruising because for him, it’s easy. Pick a cruise line, find an itinerary that appeals, and go. It’s not always that simple, of course–but compared with planning a week-long vacation trip to a large attraction like the Happiest Place on Earth or a complex domestic or foreign destination, he finds it a relative breeze. The cruise line will arrange shore excursions, the ship offers a relatively limited number of choices for meals, and the question of where to stay is no question at all. My friend is not a planner by nature, and hates the perceived (and often very real) amount of planning that goes into travel in the twenty-first century.

In 2023 Expedia reported that the average traveler visited 277 webpages as part of their travel planning process. While travel advisors and AI are obvious tools for reducing the hassle of travel planning, how many travelers don’t even consider a destination or attraction because of their perception that the experience isn’t worth the trouble of research and planning?

I started my career in consumer packaged goods marketing, promoting apparel and food products sold through the supermarkets and big box retailers of the world. But with the possible exceptions of wine and beer, no category in Walmart or Target comes close to the abundance of choices a consumer faces when considering travel experiences.

That’s why a book published in 2003 (the year before I started my consulting career), The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz, changed my view of the tourism category. Schwartz argues that the side effects of having more choices is that decisions require more effort, mistakes are more likely, and the psychological consequences of those mistakes are more severe–that the very culture of cherished abundance that characterizes America robs us of our satisfaction.

What’s funny to me is that we don’t often assess the perception of how hard an attraction or destination is to visit. We often just assume having “more” is enough. Is the consumer’s consideration set of travel experiences diminished before the traveler even begins to engage with the vacation planning cycle because of a perception that a place is too hard to visit? And what are we doing as a sector to reduce that perception in the event that traveler decides to visit our website or engage on social media?

Here are a few practical ideas for minimizing the traveler’s anxiety over having too many choices:

1. Maybe it’s time to step away from the flashy ad that tries to cram a thousand images into a :30 television spot, something that is characteristic of way too many tourism promotional efforts. That’s not telling a story. It’s taking a box of photos and dumping it on the kitchen table of your target audience and asking them to like you because of it.
2. Include a question in your next market research brand awareness initiative that asks how hard your attraction or destination is to visit, and ask it of both visitors and non-visitors.
3. Do a customer journey mapping research exercise.
4. Take another look at your website. Are you just throwing activities and ideas at your potential guest and asking them to figure it out? I know that destination websites in particular have to be agnostic (or, at the least, reflective of the “coalition of the willing” of partners who return a phone call or respond to an email), but they don’t have to be devoid of consumer insight, either. Itineraries that reflect both destination strengths and traveler interests are one simple solution, but only if they’ve been appropriately curated. (I’ve always thought Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association does a nice job with their Trails of North Alabama.)
5. Connect prospective visitors with guides and other sherpas in your community.