Virginia tourism website rated tops in United States

The Virginia Tourism Corporation received a singular honor last week. The National Council of State Tourism Directors bestowed its Mercury Award on the Old Dominion for Best Travel Web Site among states. The award was presented last week at the annual United States Travel Association ESTO Conference in Boston.

VTC’s consumer travel Web site, http://www.Virginia.org has h,istorically been one of the nation’s most-visited state tourism web sites but in 2011 it received a major artistic, structural and functional redesign, making it more user-friendly and containing more dynamic features and content, according to a news release. New search engine optimization strategies were implemented to put the Web site more prominently in the public eye. As a result, the site was accessed by more than 6.3 million unique visitors in the 12 months following the 2011 relaunch, the news release said.

According to the USTA, the Mercury Awards “recognize members for excellence and creative accomplishment in state/ territory destination marketing and promotion; and inspire, by showcasing outstanding work, the continued development of imaginative and exciting marketing and promotional programs.” U.S. state and territory tourism offices that are members of the United States Travel Association are eligible for the Mercury Awards.

Key among the new or upgraded features of the VTC Web site are:

• Interactive maps on attraction and destination pages showing nearby things to do and places to stay

• Recommendations system alerting visitors to attractions and events similar to that being viewed

• Enhanced trip planner allowing user to add items during a visit, organize them into itineraries and share them with friends and family via Facebook Connect integration

• In creating the new web site, VTC had in mind certain standards and goals not only for general site visitation but also referrals to the Web sites of tourism industry partners throughout the Commonwealth. VTC far surpassed its goal of 750,000 referrals by conducting more than 970,000 site visitors to partner Web sites. VTC also wanted to increase site visitation to individual travel business listings on Virginia.org, setting 500,000 page views as a goal. The result ended up being more than 6.5 million page views of tourism business listings.

One of VTC’s most important services is providing free page listings of information for Virginia destinations, attractions and events on its Web site. Localities, attractions, restaurants, shops and lodging providers are among the entities that can create and maintain their own individual pages on Virginia.org with information including Web site links, images and text description. The service is particularly valuable for those with limited marketing budgets. A tutorial and other help resources are available on the Web site for those creating listing pages.

For more information on planning a Virginia vacation or getaway visit http://www.Virginia.org or call toll free 1-800-VISITVA for a free Virginia Is For Lovers Travel Guide.