Roger Brooks

Roger Brooks is a tourism expert, professional speaker, and the CEO of Destination Development International.

Early career
Roger Brooks was born in Seattle and grew up in a small community in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. He began his career managing tour logistics for musical groups including Chicago, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and The Bee Gees for the tour promoter Concerts West. Following his employment with Concerts West, he worked in resort development at the newly developed Whistler, British Columbia resort town as well as other mountain towns in North America. Then in 1981 Brooks founded the tourism company Destination Development International (DDI) with Bill Chandler.

Work in the tourism industry
Roger Brooks currently resides in Seattle, Washington where he serves as the CEO of DDI. In his position with DDI, Brooks serves as a tourism expert for municipalities and other organizations globally. In helping municipalities, he typically meets with the community members themselves in order to build tourism economies from the bottom up and to explain brand development. In addition to helping communities in their branding efforts, he also performs first-hand research by experiencing life in the communities as a tourist would for several days, and works with residents as well as community leaders in order to prepare new branding ideas. Because of his conducting of these "Community Assessment" programs, he has been referred to as the tourism "mystery shopper".

Brooks has worked with more than 1,000 communities globally, doing community branding, development, and marketing. Brooks has stated that the main goal of tourism is not the amount of people that arrive in a community, but the amount of money they will spend when they visit. In order to market smaller communities, he relies on the Internet and other inexpensive advertising venues rather than broadcast advertising, and provides help with web development as well as tourism economy planning. His presentations to communities and nations alike center on his Ingredients of an Outstanding Destination, and in 2006 Brooks published the book Your Town: A Destination - The 25 Immutable Rules of Successful Tourism.

Brooks also advises countries on the national level. He has appeared in the national press as a tourism expert, including for Fox News and NBC. In 2009 he became national news when he recommended that Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch be turned into a new Graceland-like tourist attraction, stating that Neverland could attract more tourists than the home of Elvis. In 2010 Brooks made further news in California, when he recommended the town of Oxnard, California changed its name to "Oxnard Shores" to better reflect its seaside location.