West Volusia Tourism wins another Best of Show

The West Volusia Tourism Advertising Authority (WVTAA) received the state’s top tourism award at the 2021 Flagler Awards.

West Volusia won the Best of Show award for campaign budgets under $ 500,000 at an awards ceremony at the Florida Governor’s Hollywood Tourism Conference, hosted by Visit Florida earlier this month.

The Flagler Awards are an annual statewide competition that recognizes outstanding Florida tourism marketing efforts. Named after famed Florida real estate developer Henry Flagler, the Flagler Awards were established in 2000.

This year, West Volusia won the Best of Show award for marketing budgets under $ 500,000 for its “CoolCraft Beverage Trail” campaign. The idea behind the “CoolCraft Beverage Trail” came to life in 2019 during a creative discussion between Georgia Turner, Executive Director of the WVTAA, and Ann-Marie Willacker, owner of Odd Elixir MeadWorks in downtown DeLand. .

While discussing unique ways to bring more people to the area during the summer months, they quickly conceptualized a way to combine all the breweries, cafes, wineries and establishments in the area selling cold-pressed juices, meads, specialty cocktails and even lime. juice in a “trail”. The campaign was launched in the summer of 2020.

“We are absolutely delighted to be honored with the Best of Show award for the ‘CoolCraft Trail’,” said Turner. “This campaign is particularly meaningful because it took place during a pandemic, when people weren’t visiting local establishments, but we were able to create and modify this trail to keep people safe and bring them back to our establishments. It worked, visitors came back and business picked up!

The “CoolCraft Beverage Trail” campaign was made possible through the combined efforts of WVTAA and its advertising agency, Benedict Advertising.

This is the third year in the past four that WVTAA has won a Flagler Award – it did not participate in 2020. In 2019, West Volusia won bronze in Sustainable Tourism Marketing for the “Wings of the West” Wall Trail “; and in 2018, he also won Best of Show and a Henry Award for Internet Advertising for his “What’s Up in West Volusia” video series.

West Volusia offers visitors the opportunity to enjoy parks and outdoor recreation of all kinds, pristine natural beauty, historic homes like Stetson Mansion, bustling downtown DeLand – voted the best main street in America – and award-winning restaurants in 14 distinct communities.

The mission of the West Volusia Tourism Advertising Authority is to develop and support marketing and advertising programs that increase tourism to West Volusia, and to work with area hoteliers, tour operators, attractions and promoters of events to represent the region to vacationers, tour operators, meeting planners and the media.

For more information, visit visitwestvolusia.com.