When an entire town turns a football match into a two-day rolling scrum across three miles, you know you’re in the right podcast. In this episode of Destination Unknown: A Destination Website Podcast by DestinationCore, host Neil Prentice is joined by Will Wright and Jay Pratt to dive into one of the most powerful topics in digital place marketing: personalisation for destination websites.

After a quick detour into the wonderfully chaotic world of Royal Shrovetide Football in the Peak District, the team get practical about how DMOs, LVEPs, BIDs and place partnerships can use personalisation to turn large, unwieldy websites into focused, user-friendly experiences.

Drawing on years of building high-performance tourism and destination platforms, they break personalisation down into clear, achievable layers - from simple filters through to AI-powered recommendations and community features.

In this episode, we explore:

• What “personalisation” really means in the context of destination and tourism websites

• The difference between passive personalisation (on-page filters, themes, accessibility and sustainability tags) and logged-in experiences with saved preferences

• How AI and machine learning can surface relevant articles, events, offers and businesses based on on-site behaviour - and the risks of over-assuming what users want

• Why context matters: tailoring experiences for different devices, especially visitors using your site on mobile and in-destination

• How to design value exchanges so visitors willingly share information (interests, dates, themes) in return for better recommendations

• Practical ways to introduce themed content (family-friendly, dog-friendly, food & drink, etc.) without needing huge teams or complex tech

• The emerging role of community features and user-generated content as part of a personalised destination experience - and the challenges of moderation and scale

• Why every destination website should offer some level of personalisation, and how to match your ambitions to your budget, resources and brand personality

If you’re planning a new destination website, replatforming an existing site or simply trying to get more from tools you already have, this episode will help you cut through the hype and design personalisation that genuinely serves your visitors - rather than making assumptions for them.