Recognised for Best International Marketing
Portland, Oregon. – September 3, 2015 – Winners of the National Council of State Tourism Directors (NCSTD) 2015 Mercury awards were announced last week during U.S. Travel Association’s annual Educational Seminar for Tourism Organizations (ESTO) conference held this year with record attendance in Portland, Ore. The NCSTD honored Travel Oregon with a Mercury Award for Best International Marketing in the United States.
Mercury awards recognize excellence and creative accomplishment at the state level in tourism marketing and promotion, and for inspiring the continued development of exciting destination marketing and promotion programs.
“Earning this Mercury award is a testament to the extraordinary teamwork and ingenuity of Travel Oregon’s staff and our partners,” said Todd Davidson, CEO of Travel Oregon. “Being honored by our peers is particularly rewarding, because it not only shows how this campaign resonated with visitors and industry experts alike, but it also reflects the strong results they achieved. International tourism to Oregon was up 9 percent in 2014 over 2013, thanks in part to this innovative promotion.”
Honored for the Best International Marketing Campaign, Travel Oregon, Visit California and Brand USA teamed up to promote “Jeni and Olly’s West Coast Wine Adventure”, a four-part television series on Travel Channel International. The series follows the famous Brits, Jeni and Olly, as they experience the world-class wine and locally-grown, artisan food of the American West Coast, all wrapped up in one epic road trip. The series was accompanied by a sweepstakes that recreated the pair’s adventure through Oregon and California and included round-trip airfare and car service through the west coast’s most iconic wine countries. With more than 38,000 entries, the sweepstakes was the most popular contest in Travel Channel International’s history. The series became one of the Travel Channel’s top five most popular weekly programs in March, 2014. Episode one was the second highest viewed show the first day it was broadcast, and episode two was the third highest viewed show the first day it was broadcast.
NCSTD is an industry council of the the U.S. Travel Association, the national, non-profit organization representing all components of the travel industry that generates $2.1 trillion in economic output and supports 15 million jobs. U.S. Travel’s mission is to increase travel to and within the United States. For more information, visit www.ustravel.org.
The Oregon Tourism Commission, dba Travel Oregon, works to enhance visitors’ experience by providing information, resources and trip planning tools that inspire travel and consistently convey the exceptional quality of Oregon. The commission aims to improve Oregonians’ quality of life by strengthening economic impacts of the state’s $10.3 billion tourism industry that employs more than 101,000 Oregonians. www.TravelOregon.com
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Corey Marshall/ Account Director
Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Travel Oregon/Oregon Tourism Commission
317 S.W. Alder Street, Suite 200 | Portland, OR 97204
d: +64 21 555 463
www.TravelOregon.com | Industry.Traveloregon.com
