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How to Tell Better Stories
Ways to catch readers’ attention and showcase your
destination’s challenges and successes.
Presented by Jonathan Tourtellot,
Executive editor, Destination Stewardship Report
Senior editor emeritus, National Geographic Society
Director, Destination Stewardship Center;

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Why tell stories?
• Stories capture the widest audience
• Your work is important!
• Inspire others
• Call attention to threats and how to meet them
• Provide examples of how to seize an opportunity
• Gain recognition
• Help change the world

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What is a story?
What it’s not:
• The usual grant or government report
• The usual academic paper or case
study
What it is:
• Interesting to read
• No longer than absolutely
necessary
Tip
A good destination
stewardship story
involves both
narrative and
exposition. Think of
the narrative as the
road and exposition
as the features
along the way.

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Why tell your story?
Who’s the audience?
What’s the purpose?
What’s the headline?

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Framework for a Story
• Headline (title) & subtitle
• The lede (the opener).
• “Nut” paragraph: what this story is about.
• Explain the problem, threat, or opportunity.
• Next, the core of the story:
How did we deal with it?
• Lessons learned
• The ender: Concluding thoughts
Tip
Consider
the trial
lawyer’s
mantra:
“Tell the jury
what you’re
going to tell
them. Then
tell them.
Then tell
them what
you told
them.”

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Titling your story
Mexico’s Men in Masks Win UNESCO Nod
How the parachicos of Chiapas won “intangible heritage”
listing
Parachicos
dancer,
Chiapas,
Mexico
Add a
photo

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Lede (the opener)
Set the scene with a word picture:
someone doing something that
illustrates the point of your story.
Tips
Seek the telling detail
– a sound, a smell, a
sight, a comment –
that encapsulates the
spirit of the place.
You don’t need to
write the lede first.
Maybe even last.
Example adapted from a Vanuatu story:
Beneath the twin active volcanoes on the island of
Ambrym, the local tour guide was raising the obvious
dilemma: “I rely on volcano tours for my livelihood” he
said at a recent workshop for 45 tour operators in Nebul
village, “but I also want to protect my family and
community from getting sick from Covid.”

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The Lede #2 –some more openers
Or a teaser (Svalbard):
The inhabitants of Spitsbergen – all two thousand
of them – don’t have to pore over the United
Nations’ climate change reports to feel that
something’s not right.
Open with a quote (Serbia):
“Welcome out here to our contamination
zone,” my hosts say, alluding to the jocular
name for Serbian destinations swarming
with tourists in the midst of the new
coronavirus upsurge.
Tip
Use narrative hooks
Flash-backs and
flash-forwards also
work.

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The Lede #3 –
A great lede touching all the
bases (Taiwan):
Taiwan’s Turtle Island, an active
volcano known for its turtle-like shape,
claims a rare lily, an endangered flying
fox, a dazzling coral reef, a thriving
ecosystem, and a “Milk Sea.” Its
proximity to Taipei makes it a tourism
magnet – and a management
challenge.
Tip
Open with allusion to
the character of the
place. Better not to
open with a long
geography lesson.
Work it in later on if
needed.

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The “nut graf”
(nutshell paragraph)
Expand from the lede to state the
essential point or theme of the
story. Describe how you will
explain and support the rest of the
story – the overview. “Here’s
what’s to come.” Show readers
why they should pay attention and
read on. The nut graf should fit
with your headline.
Tips
Consider writing the nut first:
Ask yourself, what’s this
story about?
Then map it out:
1.“Here’s the challenge we
had to confront.”
2 State what it is.
3. Your plan for dealing with
it.
4.“But would our idea work?”
Name an uncertainty you
faced.

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Sample nutshell paragraph
The natural beauty of the area is a
double-edged sword. It attracts tourists
like bees
to honey, but unmanaged tourism
development could spoil our much-
loved, laid-back way of life, fragile
ecosystems, and cultural assets. Herein
lies the challenge of balancing the
benefits
of tourism with the need to protect
these wonderful landscapes.

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Explain the problem, threat, or
opportunity
Expand on the nut; supply more
background
Good stories present a challenge. Some
sample challenges:
• “We needed to improve community
benefits from tourism”
• “We needed to reduce our carbon
footprint”
• “We wanted to appeal to tourists who
would stay longer.”
Tip
A challenge can serve
as a narrative hook that
makes you want to read
on. “What happened
next?”

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The core of the story: How did we deal with
it?
Here’s where you can use a
straightforward chronological
account:
“This thing happened, then we did
this to address it, then that
required this new action, etc.” –
until you get to the end result.
For a complex story, you can use
bullet points, months or years,
lists of organizations, etc. as
needed
Tips
Show, don’t tell.
Don’t be coy about
financing. Who paid?
How? People want to
know!

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Lessons learned
Nothing ever works as planned. So tell
the reader:
• What did you learn in the process?
• What went better than expected?
• Worse?
• Mention educational mistakes (if you
dare!). What would we do differently,
knowing what we know now?
Tip
This section of the story
may be a good place for
bullet points or “First,…”
Second,…” Third,…” etc.

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The ender (conclusions)
Wrap up your story by summing
up its main points.
Zoom out for a final reflection:
How does your project,
programme, or approach fit into
the greater scheme of things?
What can other destinations learn
from it?
Tips
Consider a final
sentiment that ties
back to the lede:
“By combining
vaccinations with
financial grants, we
could ensure that the
tour guides of Ambrym
island would survive
the pandemic.”

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The Art of Better Writing
• Use specifics! Concrete examples that a reader can envision.
• Use shorter words. (“We ascertained that…”=“We found
that…”)
• And sentences. (Sentence fragments are okay! Really.)
• Cut unneeded words. Not “The development of the plan
required a period of two years.” Instead: “Developing the plan
took two years.”
• ACRONYM-itis. Minimize unfamiliar alphabet soup. Instead of
SGGCB and SPPRC, give the full name once and thereafter use
shorthand – “the Board” “the Commission”

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Some basic writing points
• Make the passive voice active.
• Avoid tourism clichés.
• Avoid jargon, or if necessary, explain it.
• Clarify, reread, clarify again.
• Break up long sentences.

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Make the passive voice active
Active voice: John hit Pierre.
Passive: Pierre was hit by John.
“Passive unaccountable”: Pierre was hit.
“Mistakes were made.”
-----
“A conference was convened.” [But who convened it?]
“The steering committee convened a conference.”
“The team convened a council.”
Tip
Use active verbs.
Minimize to-be and to-
have constructions

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Avoid travel & tourism clichés
• “Land of contrasts” = wasteland of boring text
• The destination “boasts” such-and-such. Places
don’t boast. DMOs do.
• Travel adjective no-nos: “charming, quaint,
bustling, etc.” Vague and horribly overused.
Instead, write what makes the place charming or
bustling. Describe two or three short telling details,
and move on.

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Avoid unjustifiable
jargon
Define technical terms important to your story:
“We needed a transfer-of-development-rights system,”
which allows one landowner to conserve land by selling the rights to
develop it to landowner in an area more suitable for many new houses.
Explain justifiable jargon
NASA jargon for shoreline: “land-sea interface”
“… the hosting for the digital transformation diagnosis…” ?????
Setting up the website? Surveying information sources?

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Clarify, re-read, clarify again
Tip
Write a first draft, do
something else for a
couple of days, then
come back to it fresh.
Also, read it aloud.
You will likely
discover many things
to tidy up!
• Cut unneeded words:
Not “The development of the plan required a
period of two years.”
Instead: “Developing the plan took two
years.”
• Acronym-itis. Minimize unfamiliar alphabet
soup. Instead of SGGCB and SPPRC, give
the full name once and thereafter shorthand:
“the Board” “the Commission”.
• Use the serial comma, a.k.a Oxford comma,
Harvard comma.

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Break up and edit long, wordy sentences
“Our role was to react with strategies aimed at strengthening governance,
encouraging innovative collaboration and digital transformation, including
operational intervention through our virtual methodologies to develop the
communication strategy, the legal support developing the MOU's and Agreements,
the introductory and training webinars, the co-creative virtual workshops, the
hosting for the digital transformation diagnosis, the marketing material, and the
follow up of the after-process relationship.”

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ORIGINAL: Our role was to react with strategies aimed at strengthening governance,
encouraging innovative collaboration and digital transformation, including operational
intervention through our virtual methodologies to develop the communication strategy, the
legal support developing the MOU's and Agreements, the introductory and training webinars,
the co-creative virtual workshops, the hosting for the digital transformation diagnosis, the
marketing material, and the follow up of the after-process relationship.
SIMPLER: Our role was to react with strategies aimed at strengthening governance.
We encouraged innovative collaboration and digital transformation. That included
operational intervention through our virtual methodologies to develop:
• the communication strategy,
• the legal support developing the MOU's and Agreements,
• the introductory and training webinars,
• the co-creative virtual workshops,
• the hosting for the digital transformation diagnosis,
• the marketing material, and
• the follow up of the after-process relationship.

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EDITED: Our role was to develop strategies for strengthening governance. We
encouraged collaboration and digitalization. That included helping the destination
with:
• their communication strategy,
• the legalities of MOU's and Agreements,
• training webinars and virtual workshops,
• hosting for the digital transformation diagnosis [ask author what this means],
• marketing material, and
• follow-up plans.
ORIGINAL: Our role was to react with strategies aimed at strengthening governance,
encouraging innovative collaboration and digital transformation, including operational
intervention through our virtual methodologies to develop the communication strategy, the
legal support developing the MOU's and Agreements, the introductory and training webinars,
the co-creative virtual workshops, the hosting for the digital transformation diagnosis, the
marketing material, and the follow up of the after-process relationship.

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Story activity
Images
(Vasterbotten, Sweden)
Scene setter
Point picture
Three types of photos

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Last
• These are guidelines, not rules.
• Remember to think of your audience.
• What’s the headline? Have you delivered?

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The End

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For more information, contact
Jonathan B. Tourtellot
Executive Director, Destination Stewardship
Center
Editor, Destination Stewardship Report
jonathan@destinationcenter.org