For the second year in a row, the Danville-Boyle County Convention and Visitors Bureau has received first-place recognition for its marketing endeavors from the Kentucky Travel Industry Association. Last month, the CVB won gold for its new website, visitdanvilleky.com, which was developed by the company OneFold from Lexington.

In 2017, the CVB won gold for its branding initiative, “Historically Bold,” and the Judge’s Choice award for its overall branding project, said CVB executive director Jennifer Kirchner.

Each year, the KTIA holds the Traverse Awards competition, where travel professionals are honored for talent, creativity and effectiveness in marketing. Winners were announced at the Kentucky Travel Industry Annual Conference Traverse Awards gala in November.

Gold, silver, and bronze prizes were awarded for each category.

“The creation of our new website was a final component to multi-year strategy the CVB created and has implemented,” Kirchner said. “The first step was our branding initiative to fully evaluate our community, who we are, what we offer and how we can grow. We completed an award-winning visitors guide last year and this year we launched our website.”

“A modern and competitive digital identity is crucial in today’s world. We worked with OneFold, a company in Lexington, and we are thrilled with the product.”

Kirchner said the CVB wanted its website to be visually beautiful and an “experience-based site that also has an easy mobile site. There was also a focus on blogs for search optimization purposes.”

“It was a large investment of CVB resources but it is a huge asset to our community that we are able to provide,” she said. “It brilliantly and simply demonstrates all the wonderful offerings we have to enjoy. We will continue to work with OneFold to keep content fresh and up to date.”

According to KTIA, Kentucky travel and tourism businesses and marketing organizations vie for Traverse Awards in 16 categories during the annual competition. The Traverse panel of judges consists of marketing, public relations and tourism experts, whose work is conducted outside Kentucky. Award criteria include concept, creativity, design and impact. Nearly 225 entries were submitted from throughout Kentucky for the 2018 competition.

According to KTIA President and CEO Hank Phillips, “The Kentucky travel and tourism industry includes some of the most creative and effective marketing professionals to be found in any state and in any industry. It is that creativity and marketing that has resulted in tourism becoming one of Kentucky’s premier economic drivers. Traverse awards are much sought after and prestigious acknowledgements of success within this highly skilled industry.”   

According to KTIA, the organization represents all segments of Kentucky’s $14.5 billion tourism industry. The industry supports 193,000 Kentucky jobs and generates $1.52 billion in local and state tax revenue. The 800-member association engages in advocacy and provides its members with education, information and business development opportunities. The association also works to inform the public of the enormous economic, employment and tax revenue contributions tourism makes to Kentucky.