Ashtabula County CVB wins six state-wide awards
Oct. 25—The Ashtabula County Convention and Visitors Bureau won six RUBY Awards at the Ohio Conference on Travel, which took place earlier this month.
The ACCVB received awards from the Ohio Travel Association in Innovation in Travel Marketing for their mobile Covered Bridge Trail, Targeted Marketing Campaign for the Grand River Valley Wine Pass, Television Advertisement for a feature on Geneva-on-the-Lake, Social Media Campaign for the ACCVB's Ice Wine Campaign, Annual Report for the group's 2022 meeting, and Print Media for the Winery Dog Map.
ACCVB Executive Director Stephanie Siegel said the awards were a testament to the hard work of the ACCVB staff.
"I'm so proud of my staff, it's definitely a reflection of their work, not of mine," she said. "It's a whole team effort here."
No other CVB in the state won as many awards as the ACCVB did, Siegel said.
Awards were given out in 17 categories, with three divisions per category based on budget.
"We had nine entries, we were finalists in eight, and we brought home six," Siegel said.
Any business in the travel industry can submit entries for the awards, not just convention and visitors bureaus, she said.
"Some of the competition had budgets with millions and millions of dollars, and big-time agencies doing their work," Siegel said. "We had just the four of us, and our budget's in thousands of dollars, not millions of dollars. That makes it even more special."
The ACCVB's submissions pushed the envelope in some of the categories, like the annual report category.
"We don't do a one-dimensional annual report," Siegel said. "We do an annual meeting that's live, that has lots of bells and whistles and movement and interesting activity. Because no one wants to read a boring annual report anymore."
The groups that had success at the awards ceremony were those that are listening to what visitors are looking for and adapting to it, she said.
The television advertising the ACCVB was recognized for made an effort to show real people in real places, Siegel said.
Siegel said the CVB's Winery Dog Map was driven by requests for information about what wineries people can take their dogs to.
"And that was just in response to a ton of questions we were getting from visitors," she said. "What this all boils down to is we're being responsive to the visitor needs and wants. We're listening, and so that's what's making the difference with us."
The way the ACCVB markets Ashtabula County is constantly shifting, as they work to speak to what individual visitors are looking for, she said.
"I think it just goes to show that you don't need big budgets to make big impacts," Siegel said. "You just need creativity and community and consistency."
