What I Brought Back from Meltwater Summit 2026: Notes for Destination Marketers

I flew direct from 30A to NYC, checked into the Marriott Marquis and spent two days at Meltwater Summit. This is what stuck, specifically for anyone working in hospitality or destination marketing.

The conference brought together PR, marketing, and communications professionals from tech, oil and gas, agencies, analytics, media, and corporate strategy. Speakers came from NBCUniversal, McDonald's, Novartis, FIFA, Mars, Canva, Lonely Planet, and more. AI was a significant part of the conversation. So were creator partnerships, trust and reputation management, crisis preparedness, corporate storytelling, and the question of how data actually becomes a decision.

Nobody in the room believed AI was replacing human creativity. The vibe was more interesting than that. Everyone was trying to do the same thing. Connect years of hard-won expertise to tools and systems that did not exist five years ago.

The takeaway was not that AI is taking over…