Beaches of Fort Myers, Sanibel Earn Florida’s Top Tourism Marketing Honors

The Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau (VCB) earned a “Henry Award,” the highest award for imaginative destination marketing at the 41st Annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism Flagler Awards Competition presented last week in Orlando. The VCB has the distinction of acquiring 21 Henry Awards since the competition began in 1999.

Sponsored by Visit Florida, the official marketing organization for Florida tourism and the Florida Commission on Tourism, the Flagler Awards program is designed to acknowledge the outstanding marketing achievements of the state’s tourism-related businesses, destinations, attractions, and other entities. Four out-of-state tourism-marketing authorities judged the competition’s nearly 200 entries in 15 categories.

In the competition’s magazine category, the VCB was awarded for its campaign “Florida’s Unspoiled Island Sanctuary.” The VCB uses magazines as one element in a multi-media campaign designed to narrow the focus of the brand and communicate its core attributes and differentiators.

The VCB was a finalist in six other categories including creativity in public relations, which focuses on reaching a new market through the sports media; Website, http://www.treasureyourtrip.com/; resource promotional material/consumer, “My Island Life” Webisodes; television, “What took you so long?” campaign; radio, “Stop ignoring that voice inside.