Episode Summary: Ladona Weathers, Visit Table Rock Lake

Larry catches up with Ladona Weathers from Visit Table Rock Lake — a marketing department of one running point for an 800-mile shoreline tucked into southwest Missouri (yes, more shoreline than California, and no, you can't drive around it). Ladona makes the case that small DMOs don't have to play small: her org consistently posts top-in-the-state ROI by leaning hard into partnerships, especially co-op work with Silver Dollar City, the wildly popular 1880s theme park right next door.

The bigger conversation is about how authenticity is winning right now. With AI flooding travel research, Ladona argues storytelling from real owners and real visitors is what actually moves the needle — and that goes for influencer strategy too, where micro-influencers and unpolished voices are outperforming the trying-too-hard crowd. She also gets candid about the challenges nobody's talking about, like aging post-COVID resort inventory and the tricky dance of measured growth in a destination that exploded during the pandemic.

In This Episode

• 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 04:03 - Exploring Table Rock Lake and Silver Dollar City
• 08:19 - Exploring Missouri's Caves
• 11:01 - Influencer Marketing and Authenticity in Destination Marketing
• 17:00 - Challenges in Tourism: Aging Resorts and Visitor Expectations

Key Takeaways:

• Partnerships are the small-DMO superpower. Ladona's co-op with Silver Dollar City matched a surprise state tourism allocation and unlocked tactics (like podcast advertising) the budget couldn't normally support — driving measurable lift in county tax revenue.
• One org, three hats. Visit Table Rock Lake operates as the chamber, the DMO, and the economic development arm — a structure that makes stakeholder alignment dramatically easier than the typical siloed setup.
• Authenticity beats polish in influencer marketing. For a Midwestern drive-to market, audiences sniff out "trying to be an influencer" instantly. A single micro-influencer from Omaha pushed that city into their top 10 visitation markets within six months.
• AI is making real storytelling more valuable, not less. As travel planners get more LLM-generated content, firsthand voices from local operators and mom-and-pops cut through harder than ever.
• Sports-adjacent is a real positioning lane. Bass fishing, wake surfing, and lake sports don't fit traditional sports marketing, but partnering northward with Springfield (Cardinals minor league, indoor arena football) creates legit cross-promotion plays.
• The challenge nobody's discussing: aging lodging stock. Resorts built around the 1950s damming of the White River are turning over post-COVID, and today's visitor wants experience or a touch of luxury — not just "cheapest place on the lake."
• Measured growth > viral growth. After a COVID-era explosion, Table Rock is intentionally pacing itself to protect the environment that makes the destination work in the first place.

Welcome to Aqua Talks where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.

Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.

Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.

Welcome to Aqua Talks. Today we're coming to you from Louisville, Kentucky live at the Etourism Conference.

We're going to be talking to some great DMOs today and some vendors. So stay tuned, continue watching and we're going to have some great content over the next couple days, some great conversations.

We're going to be meeting a lot of great people. So thank you for watching Aqua Talks. See you soon.

Hello ladonna, thank you for being on Aqua Talks and thank you for meeting us here at the Etourism in Louisville, Kentucky. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

So tell us what you do, where you, where you're from, who you represent, your destination you love to, to be a part of.

Well, first of all, thank you for the invitation. Super happy to be here. First time at the Etourism summit. But I work for the Table Rock Lake Chamber of Commerce, which also powers the brand.

Visit Table Rock Lake. Table Rock Lake is located in southwest Missouri. We are about 20 minutes west of Branson, Missouri, which most everyone in America has heard of.

And then about 40 minutes south of Springfield, Missouri. That's our corner, closest, largest town.

But I primarily market Table Rock lake, which is 800 miles of shoreline, which is actually more shoreline than California. It's a huge lake. It crosses two states, Arkansas and Missouri.

80% Of that shoreline is where I am in Stone County, Missouri and we're a fairly small organization, so I am a marketing department of one, so I kind of have to do it all. I have amazing agency partners that help us. We frequently at Visit Table Rock Lake have the top ROI in the state for our marketing dollars.

So we're really effective and efficient with every dollar that we spend.

Ah, that sounds great. Tell me a little bit about Table Rock Lake.

What would someone who loves to be outdoors, what would be one of the top experiences you would, you would, you would recommend at Table Rock?

Absolutely. So with 800 miles of shoreline, you can kind of find your little piece of water paradise anywhere. We are very popular with bass fishing.

We are one of the number one bass fishing lakes in the United States. Lots of pro anglers like to come, but then we also have Your weekend warriors come and fish as well.

And then wake surfing is really, really growing across the lake. And because we are so large and fun fact, our lake is not a circle.

So even though we go into Arkansas, we go into Arkansas in two places, but they don't connect.

Yes.

So because that lake is so big and we have so many coves, you know, you can have a wake surfer in one part of the lake and a bass fisherman in the other. And they're not bugging each other. There's lots of space to enjoy a very clean lake that, you know, it's just a water paradise.

That sounds great. Sounds like a lot of fun. So speaking usually with aqua talks, we go into a trend or a topic that you.

That's pretty close to you, that you might want to talk about or, or promote or can just be something that excites you. So if we were going to ask you to bring up a topic, what would you like the most talk about when we talk about a trend.

So for me it's partnerships. Being a small DMO and a department of one partnerships are vital for us. And like I said, our ROI is fantastic. And it's because of our partnerships.

And it's not just partnerships with other experts and agencies and things like that, but it's our stakeholders in our community. Silver Dollar City, often voted the number one theme park in the United States, is located right where I am.

If you're on roller coasters, you can see the lake. And so they partner with us a lot, not only in sharing of assets or creative teams, but in dollars as well.

So we'll often co op together to help, you know, both of us make our dollars go further. That's really important when we're such a small DMO or. We just passed our first tourism tax last year.

So for decades we have been marketing with state dollars and partnership dollars. We're continuing both of those things, but now growing even more with our tax dollars as well.

But those partnerships are vital when it comes to being able to make the most with a little bit.

Okay, I gotta circle back to the amusement park. My son and I love amusement parks, especially roller coasters at the amusement parks.

So can you just dive in a little bit deeper about this amusement park? Probably something really interesting to hear. I never knew there was an amusement park in that area, so I'd like to hear a little bit more about it.

It is incredibly family friendly, but they have something for, you know, little bittys on up to grandma and grandpa are going to have a good time too. And the roller coasters, they frequently winning awards for the top roller coasters in the country. They probably.

Fire in the Hole is, I think, their newest roller coaster, and it's all indoor, so it's very cool. Has the newest technology. It's indoor.

Wow.

And it tells a story.

So it's a storytelling roller coaster, and it tells the story of a fire happening in Marvel, which is the name of the cave that actually founded this theme park. It was all built around the Marvel cave. Missouri's the cave state. There's caves everywhere. Marvel is huge. It's beautiful. You can tour it.

But in this town of marble that caught fire, it tells the story of fire in the hole. And the roller coaster, which just opened last year, utilizes some of the very newest technologies. It's so smooth, and it's super cool.

They also have the time traveler, which has these carts. I think four people ride on a cart, might be two, but they spin all around as you're going up and down. And.

And it, too, is all very themed, and I. I have a feeling that they're introducing a new roller coaster coming very, very soon.

Wow. Okay, that's great. We've been talking for, like, three minutes, and I've learned so much right now. So Missouri is the state of caves.

We are. We are the cave state. Yeah.

Cave state.

Yeah.

Mostly above ground or not above ground. Excuse me? Because I was thinking spelunking, not spelunking.

That's right.

Okay, I'm getting that right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're gonna investigate a cave for the first time, you're really gonna belunk.

Yes.

But, yeah. So especially down in the Ozark Mountains, which is where we are.

Those mountains are made of caves, and that's also what feeds our water system and also why our water system is so clean. Because those caves really filter it. That. That limestone and that rock.

Yes.

Filter our water. So we're fortunate. That helps keep our. Our lakes and rivers so very clean. And we have tons of rivers as well for folks. Folks who want to float.

Table rock is fed by those rivers which all come through these caves. So fun fact. If you're driving down the road in Missouri and you see rock formations and you see water coming out of them, there's a cave.

And speaking of, there was an activity that actually, when I was in Florida. Excuse me.

When I was in the air Force in Florida, a lot of my friends, I called those guys the X gamers because they like to do a lot of that crazy stuff. So they would go scuba diving in caves holding onto these ropes because it's dark, you can't see anything. You're underwater and you're in caves.

Do they do that there also?

So we don't really have that type of activity. We have quite.

I wouldn't recommend it.

We don't have that much water filling our caves. But we have caves that you can drive through, you can walk through. I mean, all kinds of exploring are happening right at Table Rock.

There's Marvel at Silver Dollar City, which is huge. But then we also have Talking Rocks Cavern. And one the coolest things they do is they do a lantern tour in the evenings.

And it really gives you a whole different view of these caves. And they're, they're truly natural wonders found right in the Midwest.

If you have not gone cave exploring, it is so very cool and really all ages love it. And you always have tour guides that are passionate about it and are going to tell you the history in Missouri.

These caves have so much history from Jesse James hiding out in caves, Bonnie and Clyde, you know, hidden some caves as to, you know, your bootleggers during prohibition. Lots of history comes from these caves as well.

Yeah. I was going to ask you, what are some of the things about your destination that most people don't know yet?

You just gave me a few of them right there. But are there anything else that. Or something that, you know, maybe when you're at work every day you're thinking, okay, I need to get this out more.

Because most people don't know this about our destination.

Probably just the size of Table Rock Lake. We frequently get phone calls of, you know, people saying, hey, what's the road? I can drive around the lake.

You can't drive around our lake because of the rocks that create these caves. It has huge rock bluffs, so there are roads that lead to it, but you can't. If you wanted to drive all 800 miles of that shoreline, you can't.

And we don't really have a ton of beaches. We have some, but we are rock.

Okay.

And you know something else that makes Table Rock very different from anybody who might be familiar with a cave in the northern Midwest or Wisconsin or Minnesota. Not a cave, a lake.

Yeah.

In the northern states there they're often sandy and there's a lot of vegetation in the bottom of those lakes. Ours is rock. So that again, keeps it really clear.

Also is why it's such a great place to fish those fish Have a lot of places to hide and get nice and big for those anglers. But it's such a different experience having a really rock bottomed lake versus your sandy vegetative lake.

What's been working well for you in attracting visitors to your destination?

I think storytelling is incredibly important and it's only growing in importance, especially with AI just exploding. We want authenticity when we're looking to travel plan and when AI is spitting out these results.

If you can have some authenticity coming from someone who experienced it. Yes, I think that's so important right now for destination marketers really focusing on storytelling.

And for us, we include our partners in a lot of that storytelling and letting them speak for their attraction or their restaurant or what have you. And being able to hear from the owner. We have a lot of mom and pops, we don't have a lot of chains.

So being able to hear from that owner is really powerful for the visitor.

Do you feel influencer marketing really plays a big role in your destination, especially economic development? Like you were just speaking with a lot of your local partners, it's going.

To be playing a bigger and bigger role. Influencer marketing is becoming more and more expensive.

So for the small DMOs we work with, with what I would consider micro influencers, I do have a great example of. We had a woman from Omaha come and Omaha had never really been in like our top 10 cities for visitation and within six months it was in our top 10.

So yes, influencers are very important. They're becoming more and more important and.

More and more expensive.

They are. And I know for us it'll become part of a bigger part of our strategy as we move into the next year.

Yeah, we were actually in Pittsburgh is hosting the NFL draft actually next week and we're doing social media influencer segment and, and campaign for the company Aqua. And I'm going to be the influencer. I'm gonna, it's gonna be my first, you know, my first experience as an influencer. So this is gonna be.

Oh, that's awesome.

It's gonna be fun.

I will watch. I love all things sports, especially football.

So we're going to really display the city, the activities because there'll be a lot of cities there. So it'll, we're going to touch on a lot of different destinations if we can. Yeah, you know, cities.

But you know, the influencer marketing, seeing that a lot like you were saying, it's getting expensive but it's, it's amazing. A lot of our, our partners, you know, we, we do A lot of influencer marketing for them, but it's not me. I don't even know how to be an influencer.

That might make you a really great influencer though. If you're not trying to be an influencer. It's more authentic.

And I know even for influencer marketing it's becoming less and less important how many followers they have and more and more important on just how authentic they are.

I know when we're looking at influencers, if you're acting too much like an influencer for our market specifically, which is very Midwestern, we are a drive to destination primarily. Yes. Somebody trying to be an influencer. People are going to see through that so fast.

Yeah.

So we're really looking for that authentic story.

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you know, with your destination. Do believe sports marketing plays a really big part in that.

And I know a lot of other destinations that they, for example, yeah, they have their economic development. Development. They have, they might have beaches, they might have a mountain. But you know, your destination.

Would you consider a lot of what you do, what you have there a sports related, like fishing. That's sports related.

I call it sports adjacent is where I would put it. And we are actually. So my organization is actually three in one.

We're a chamber of commerce, a dmo and we are also the economic development organization. So that makes it a little easier. We can all work together.

But if you want to talk really true sports marketing and sports is a personal passion of mine for my destination. We don't have a lot of what you would consider traditional sports.

Springfield's going to be really our closest where they've got, you know, some semi pro stuff happening and we, we piggyback on that. But when it comes to your lake enthusiasts, your fishermen, they're not your traditional sports. So that is that.

Like I said, I think we're like sports adjacent. Sports marketing is tremendously huge and can absolutely drive a destination.

And we know that especially having Kansas City with the Chiefs and you've got, you know, hockey and baseball in St. Louis. We've got it kind of all around us.

But when we look at sports, we do try to kind of go north with Springfield because you can go catch Springfield Cardinals baseball game or an indoor arena football game and then come on down to the lake. So we really partner together like that.

Where do you see your destination heading in the next two to three years?

I think we're going to experience some really nice measured growth. Measured growth is really important for us because protecting our Environment is really important for us.

We exploded during COVID because folks were getting outside and there are some states around us that had a lot of restrictions. And so folks who still wanted to vacation but wanted to do it safely flocked to Table Rock Lake. And it really did explode our area.

We're kind of returning to a pre Covid level and now really looking at a measured growth for that. But I think the only place we have to go is up at Table Rock Lake.

What is a challenge you're facing that isn't talked about enough?

Probably our aging resorts. So Table Rock Lake was created by the damming of the White River. So that happened in the 50s and that created these fishing resorts.

Some of them already existed because there was fishing along the White river, but it flooded a lot of them as well when this dam was created. So we have some of those resorts that are original and some folks have invested in them and some have not.

So those aging resorts and how folks are dealing with that is probably one of our biggest challenges because our visitors changing, they're not necessarily looking as much for the older fishing resort or for the just cheapest place you can stay at the lake.

Visitors more so because they value the experience or looking for something a little more luxurious and luxury can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. So really managing those resorts and helping find visitors for those for. For any level of lodging is probably our biggest challenge.

Yeah, what. What kind of partner actually makes your life easier as a dmo?

Oh, I can answer that. That question two different ways.

I can answer that question with a stakeholder partner, and that's somebody who really understands a growth mindset at a measured level and wants to tell a collaborative story, much like Silver Dollar City does with us and values where we are as a destination.

And then also on the agency side, I rely so heavily on our agency partners who no more have more access to resources as far as research and data than we have. So I really rely so heavily on their expertise to bring us strategies and bring us plans and be ready to pivot whenever we need to.

Do you have a case study that sticks out? You'd like to Taco Bell?

It's not necessarily a formal case study, but last year we did a really heavy partnership with Silver Dollar City, and it came out of the state of Missouri. Tourism said, hey, we have some extra dollars. Would you like them? That always means you have to match them. So we didn't have a match for it.

So we went to Silver Dollar City and we're like, okay, the state will give us this much money. Do you want to match that with us? We have to be in control of spending it though. And they're like, absolutely, let's match. And so they did.

And we worked together really closely on creative, but because of the resources they had as a large corporation, we were able to do some things we can't normally do because we don't have the resources to do the creative. So like podcast advertising we were able to do, which we hadn't been able to do in the past.

So we ended up with awesome numbers and great results that drove traffic for the theme park as well as Table Rock Lake, the county. Overall, our tax revenue during that time, we definitely saw an increase.

So that, you know, it's more of an anecdotal case study, but again, proving how important those partnerships are, especially for small DMOs, you know, going to the folks that that might be even bigger than you as an organization where you are can prove invaluable.

Well, thank you for being with us.

And speaking of podcasts, we'll have your link, your bios, excuse me, your bio and your links and how you know, anyone can get in contact with you on aquatalks.com but we also want to just, you know, speak to our audience and let them know how they can reach out to you, where you want them to go to find out more about your destination and do some investigations to make the research a little easier. But go right ahead certainly.

So you can find all things Table rock lake@visittablerocklake.com all of my contact information is on there as well and I can talk marketing all the time. If anybody wants to geek out about data or tourism trends, I am always here for it.

Visit tablerocklake.com or also go to aquatox.com to find the links to visit tablerocklake.com thanks for being with us.

Thank you. Thank you.

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