Visit McKinney Launches Redesigned Website to Help Travelers Discover and Plan Their Visit

The new VisitMcKinney.com website represents a significant step forward in how destinations can use technology, data, and artificial intelligence to connect travelers with experiences and position their destination for the rapidly changing way people discover, research, and plan travel.

The project included a full website migration, comprehensive redesign, new functionality on the admin end, and a reimagined digital experience, all completed in less than 30 days—a timeline that challenges the traditional model of destination website development, which can take months or even more than a year.

Rather than approaching a website redesign as a traditional, months-long technology implementation, Visit McKinney and Steeple used an AI-native approach designed around the realities of modern destination marketing.

The result is more than a new website. It is a new digital foundation designed to help McKinney serve travelers across traditional search, social platforms, and the rapidly evolving world of AI-powered travel discovery.

For Visit McKinney, that technology became part of a broader rethink of the destination's digital presence.

Brandon Opiela, Chief Data and AI Officer for the City of McKinney said, “When technology works well, it disappears, and what's left is a seamless experience. We want someone planning a visit to McKinney to be able to focus on where to eat, where to stay, and what to do while they're here. Visit McKinney has built something that lets technology do the heavy lifting quietly, so that visitors can have an unforgettable experience in McKinney.”

The new site is designed to make it easier and more engaging for visitors to discover what makes McKinney distinctive—from our historic downtown and locally owned businesses to dining, events, outdoor experiences, arts and culture, accommodations, and itineraries. Interactive features, dynamic content, and gamified elements invite visitors to explore the destination in new ways. Visitors can discover what's trending this week or month, find an itinerary that matches their vibe, and even pump up their own inflatable turkey.

But beneath the consumer-facing experience is a new digital architecture designed to help McKinney compete in an increasingly AI-driven travel ecosystem. The new platform provides a more flexible foundation for delivering timely, relevant content while creating opportunities to continually enhance how travelers discover, experience, and engage with McKinney.

One of the biggest changes is how destination information can be maintained. Rather than relying exclusively on staff to manually identify outdated information or determine which business listings need attention, Steeple helps surface those opportunities to the Visit McKinney team.

“We wanted to push the envelope in the travel and tourism industry,” said Sarah Nolting, Senior Communications & Media Specialist for Visit McKinney. “Travelers shouldn't have to work to find the information they need, and every traveler is looking for something different. What excites me about this new platform and website experience is that it gives people more ways to discover McKinney while giving our team a much smarter way to manage the information behind the experience. Steeple helps us see what needs to be updated and gives us the opportunity to make those decisions quickly, which will improve the overall visitor experience.”

Chad Hugghins, Founder and CEO of Steeple Systems, Inc. says, "A destination changes every day, and keeping information accurate and strategies aligned with marketing best practices is complex. Steeple runs a fleet of agents that watch McKinney's businesses, events, and places and brings changes to the team as they happen, so a fix happens once and is right everywhere. That frees the Visit McKinney team to do the work only they can do: telling McKinney's story and growing the impact this destination can have on the local economy. The website is the start of that, not the end of it."

As travelers increasingly use AI assistants alongside (and sometimes instead of) traditional search engines, destinations are being challenged to ensure their information is accurate, structured, discoverable, and useful across an expanding digital ecosystem.

Steeple's platform is specifically designed around that challenge, helping destinations build and maintain a structured source of destination knowledge while using performance data and AI to identify opportunities across search, AI referrals, content, social, and other marketing channels.

This project represents a first-of-its-kind approach to destination website development, bringing together AI-powered technology, destination expertise, and human oversight to dramatically compress the traditional website development timeline.

Rather than waiting months or years for the next major digital transformation, Visit McKinney has created a platform designed to continuously evolve with the destination and the travelers it serves.

From the initial migration and redesign through the development of new functionality and launch, the entire project was completed in under 30 days.

The accelerated timeline demonstrates what is possible when destination marketing teams combine experienced human decision-making with AI-powered technology and a modern digital development approach. But speed was only one objective.

The project also focused on creating a website that can evolve continuously rather than waiting for the next major redesign cycle.

For destination organizations, that represents a significant shift. Instead of building a website and then periodically rebuilding it when the technology becomes outdated, the new model allows the digital experience to continually respond to changing information, traveler behavior, search trends, and destination needs.

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