The Easiest Collaborative Win of the Year: Your Holiday Season
The holiday season is when museums and historic communities put on their most festive face. But most of them do it alone, each promoting its own event to its own audience, even when a visitor would happily make a day of it.
Last week I talked with a potential client about exactly this. They're a collaborative of organizations whose whole reason for working together is to cross-promote and support each other. Every one of their members already does something for the holidays. What they don't currently have is a shared calendar, a shared look, or a simple way to point visitors from one member's event to the next, but they are working towards that very thing for next season.
Why the Holidays Are the Easiest Place to Start
When a group of organizations decides to collaborate on marketing, the hardest part is usually identifying something new to collaborate on. The holidays skip that step entirely.
The programming already exists. No one has to create a new event. You're packaging what's already happening.
The audience is already looking. People actively search for festive things to do between late November and early January, and they're often looking for something to share with visiting family.
It's a low-risk test. A shared holiday calendar shows your partners what joint marketing feels like before you ask them to commit to something bigger.
It builds habits. Once members get used to sharing dates, photos, and details on a deadline, you've laid the groundwork for spring, summer, and fall.
Proof It Works: Museums by Candlelight
Here in Frederick County, Maryland, we have a great example. Museums by Candlelight has been a cherished local holiday tradition for more than 30 years. On the second Saturday each December, more than 25 historic sites, museums, and cultural organizations across the county open their doors with free admission and special programs from noon into the evening.
What makes it work is the umbrella nature of the event. The Frederick Historic Sites Consortium and Visit Frederick bring everyone together under one name, one date, one brochure, and one map. A visitor who comes for open-hearth cooking at one house museum finds out about living history at a battlefield and a heritage center down the road. Each site gets exposure it could never buy on its own, and the county gets a signature event that people plan around year after year.
Why Travelers Love This
The research backs up what we see on the ground. In a national survey by Development Counsellors International, 71% of U.S. adults said a trip to a destination offering holiday-themed events and activities would increase their excitement for the season (DCI).
Holiday travelers aren't just going home to see family, either. In Allianz Partners' 2025 holiday survey, 20% of travelers named cultural experiences and another 20% named holiday traditions as key goals for their trips (Allianz Partners via Hotel Online).
And experiences drive the decision about where to go in the first place. Arival found that 65% of U.S. travelers say experiences play a significant role in choosing a destination, with festivals among the fastest-growing categories (Arival via PhocusWire).
In other words, your holiday programming is exactly the kind of thing travelers are looking for. They just need to be able to find it all in one place.
What Makes a Joint Holiday Calendar Work
You don't need a big budget to get started. A few principles make the difference:
Be truly inclusive. Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa all have stories rooted in your region’s history. A calendar that reflects the whole community invites more people in and tells a richer story.
Start with one shared calendar. This is the heart of it. Visitors shouldn’t have to check a dozen websites to find out what’s happening. A single online calendar puts every partner’s holiday events in one place, so people can see the whole season at a glance and plan around it.
Give it a name and a look. A simple shared brand turns a list of events into something visitors recognize and remember. It also gives every partner something to share.
Make it easy to string events together. Visitors love being able to plan a full day or weekend. Show them what’s nearby, what’s happening the same weekend, and where to eat in between.
Set a simple process for partners. One form, one deadline, and clear expectations. The easier it is to contribute, the more complete your calendar will be.
Think of this year as the pilot. Track what you can, gather feedback, and build on it next season.
There's more to it, of course, from timing your promotion to deciding who manages the calendar. That's where a little outside help can save your group a lot of trial and error.
Let's Talk About Your Region
If your heritage area, byway, Main Street, or collaborative wants to turn the holiday programming you already have into a shared, marketable experience, I'd love to help. Whether you're starting from scratch or building on a long-standing tradition, we can map out a plan that fits your partners and your capacity.
Schedule a consultation with Heritage Tourism Studio to talk through how a joint holiday calendar could work in your area. It's not too late to get something in place for this season, and it's the perfect time to start planning for next year.
