Positive Steps: Recurring Patterns of Effective Adaptation Treat the Seasonal Forecast as a Planning Tool, Not a Surprise. Lead time is one of the most useful planning advantages for destination organizations facing El Niño-related uncertainty. Destinations that used the runway provided by the initial ENSO outlook and updates to adjust marketing spend, inventory messaging and stakeholder communication often were better positioned once conditions arrived. • California’s mitigation efforts ahead of the 1997–98 winter, informed by the CPC’s summer 1997 outlook, are among the clearest documented examples of forecast-informed preparedness at a statewide scale. Northern U.S. utilities that adjusted natural gas purchasing based on the same forecast realized substantial savings that were passed to customers.
• The California Coastal Commission’s public- facing El Niño resource pages, updated through each recent cycle with current NOAA data, local risk context and permit guidance for property owners, are a useful institutional model for a destination organization-adjacent agency communicating both risk and opportunity honestly to the same audience. Pivot Marketing to Reframe Rather Than Deny the Conditions. Some of the more useful off-season and adverse- weather marketing examples reviewed for this report involve reframing conditions on the ground as distinct, marketable experiences rather than apologizing for them or overpromising a return to “normal.” • Cook County, Minnesota’s Dark Sky Festival and Hygge Festival explicitly rebrand winter darkness and unpredictable weather as differentiated assets, helping a county of 5,600 residents draw 1.2 million annual visitors and earn a state tourism marketing award. • Efforts by some California ski resorts to proactively use early “Godzilla” and “Super El Niño” forecasts to sell multi-resort season passes before the 2026-27 season begins have had mixed results. Vail Resorts reported season- pass unit sales down about 12 percent through mid-September, as skiers who remembered a historically poor 2025–26 season delayed purchases. Forecast-driven marketing works best when paired with honest expectation- setting and flexible purchase terms, since strong El Niño years have historically produced a mixed record for California snowfall.
DESTINATION ORGANIZATION PLAYBOOK
Prioritize Radical Transparency and Shape Public Narrative.
Case examples and crisis-management research suggest destination organizations are better positioned when they are forthright with staff and boards, recognize uncertainty and avoid promising outcomes the destination cannot control. • Publishing plain-language, regularly updated explanations of what El Niño was and was not likely to mean for their specific locations has been a proven low-cost, trust-building practice and a means to mitigate public pushback on tourism marketing during a disruptive season.
Available evidence across several El Niño cycles suggests that destinations were better positioned when they used forecast lead time to prepare flexible marketing, inventory planning and stakeholder communication before conditions fully materialized.
Rather than treating adverse conditions only as setbacks, some destinations appeared to benefit from repositioning available experiences, such as sunny winter recreation, indoor and cultural offerings, extended shoulder seasons or unaffected areas of the destination. The evidence also points to the value of diversified product mixes, cross-agency coordination and transparent
communication that acknowledges uncertainty. By contrast, recurring risks appear to include overpromising snow or sun based on ENSO phase alone, delaying resilience investments until after repeated costly events, treating El Niño’s geographically uneven impacts as a uniform national story and waiting to communicate with stakeholders until conditions have already deteriorated.
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