WASHINGTON, D.C.—The EDI Assessment Tool introduced by Destinations International is breaking new ground as the first of its kind designed for destination organizations to understand how equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) has been incorporated into their operations.
With the new EDI tool, destinations will have the opportunity to assess their workplace dynamics, operations and policies, vendor selection, community engagement and accessibility-related strategies. The tool will give them a score based on median and best practice averages, and users can filter the results to anonymously compare their destination to others by budget, geography, tourism assets and other factors. There’s also a guide to leading best practices to help elevate their EDI initiatives.
Organizations can decide how deeply they want the comparisons to go by choosing one of four reporting tiers. At the basic level, they can compare their results to industry medians, while the highest level of reporting allows them to see how they compare to a set of peer destinations and includes a 75-minute consultation with Destinations International’s chief diversity officer.
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The new tool comes on the heels of Destinations International’s 2022 Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Study of Destination Organizations, an examination of overall demographics and perceptions on EDI based on data from 491 respondents from member destination organizations. In the introduction to the research, Don Welsh, President and CEO, led the charge toward the next step. ‘We must continue to advance our work and our new initiatives to provide measurement, resources and other tools to validate our work and progress,” he said.
The organization also has an Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee that supports its strategic planning and programming initiatives focused on five core areas — CEO Engagement, Industry Partnerships, University Partnerships, Research and Workforce Development — and a new Chief Diversity Officer, Sophia Hyder Hock, who joined in February 2022.
Reach Don Welsh at (202) 296-7888 or dwelsh@destinationsinternational.org
