One thing to clarify is that when I say 'small DMO', I might mean 'tiny'. The ones with just a couple of people and very small budgets. In that case I would seriously consider Facebook. And if you're larger, you still need to start.

To start a page in facebook as a DMO is free, something that your website developer could not do. It also has the viral aspects that assists your content spread through social media platform, something that a website can not do. That is why such widgets like flickr, youtube and twitter have all made facebook applications of their products.

Although I agree that websites are very useful tools in online marketing. Facebook has the ability to drive traffic to specific conversion landing pages on your DMO websites to shorten the booking process.

Although one comment is correct, at the end of the day it is all about bums in seats, napkins in laps for DMO's but if you are not accessing all platforms for your organization then you will get left behind by rival DMO’s. I would rather see DMO's bring individual operators under there FB pages, as a show of strength than random small sites and fanpages.

Here's an interesting article from Inside Facebook about a study done by Rice University. Turns out that a Facebook Fan Page can increase sales… http://tiny.cc/vfJx2

I've grappled with this issue for a long time. For a small DMO, I believe Oceanside Tourism's http://www.VisitParksvilleQualicumBeach.com is one of the more robust destination websites out there. We use Twitter as a word of mouth traffic generator to our website. I've chosen not to do Facebook mostly due to lack of resources, like you mention. Our small DMO team doesn’t have time to keep our site current, tweet, and duplicate many of these efforts on Facebook.

DMO member promotion is the biggest reason why I doubt Facebook will ever replace our website or those of other small DMOs.

A main reason for small businesses to join DMOs is to get exposure from the destination website. I don’t believe that Facebook has functionality for DMOs to manage member “inventories”.

Member profiles on our site include contact info, Google maps, and tripadvisor widgets. Profile info is also used in other sections of the website to populate web specials and comparison grids. These profiles are member managed which makes the process even more complex and unlikely to be offered by Facebook.

As stakeholder-based small DMO would be in a better position to use Facebook as its main web presence because it doesn’t rely on the revenue or have the related commitment to provide continuous exposure to paid members.

Great discussion to be had over a pint sometime!