Explore Minnesota Honors Duluth’s Leisure Tourism Marketing Campaign with the “Creating a Welcoming Experience” Award
By The Minneapolis Egotist / /
Explore Minnesota Tourism announced Visit Duluth’s leisure tourism marketing program as the winner of the “Creating a Welcoming Experience” Award at its annual conference at the Rochester Civic Center Feb. 27.
The Explore Minnesota Tourism Awards celebrate the “outstanding people, marketing and initiatives that help make Minnesota a premier travel destination.” The “Creating a Welcoming Experience” Award honors a destination that has worked to create a more welcoming experience for travelers through initiatives like highlighting content celebrating diversity, fostering relationships with cultural and heritage communities, accessibility improvements and more.
Spreading the message that Duluth is for all is a priority for Duluth’s leisure tourism marketing efforts, led by the city of Duluth and its agency partners Bellmont Partners and Lawrence & Schiller. Initiatives to promote inclusivity – including age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, gender, income level and more – were created and implemented throughout the year in the marketing campaign. This included earned media, social media, website content, paid media, email marketing and more. Intentional inclusion of diverse people, including Duluth locals themselves, occurred in elements such as imagery, video, language used, activity/itinerary ideas and trip planning resources. Creative materials were produced with the help of Old Saw Media, Pointed North Photo and Kim Kosmatka Photography, three Duluth businesses that provided local insight and production expertise on multiple video and photo shoots throughout the year. The Duluth tourism industry was also involved in the planning and executing of the initiatives, allowing a wide variety of voices to be heard.
These initiatives saw tangible and intangible results, including record Duluth tourism tax collections in 2023 (outpacing the previous record year of 2022 by 6.9% and 2019 – pre-pandemic – by 18.7%); increased website traffic; and paid and earned media that reached hundreds of millions of potential travelers.
“It’s an honor to be recognized by Minnesota’s tourism industry for this important work,” said Tricia Hobbs, senior economic developer for the city of Duluth. “We want people to come to Duluth just as they are, and the intentional efforts to showcase that all are welcome in our city is resonating with potential visitors and locals alike.”
This is the latest award Duluth’s leisure tourism campaign has won. Others include:
– Three Telly Awards for the “Love it Like We Do,” “Love Winter Like We Do,” and “A Duluth for Every Season” TV spots
– Two Silver District 8 American Advertising Awards for Duluth Photography and Duluth Website
– A w3 Award for work done on the Visit Duluth website
“We’ve prioritized showing Duluth is a place where everyone belongs, and we’re grateful to have our work honored by Explore Minnesota,” said Megan Anderson, director at Bellmont Partners. “We’ve shared the stories of the people and places that make the city so special and have created content that is representative of all visitors, especially those who have been marginalized and underrepresented in the past. We’re proud to partner with the city, Lawrence & Schiller and the Duluth tourism industry to continue this work and raise the bar for how destination marketing can create welcoming experiences for all.”
For a full list of Explore Minnesota Tourism Award winners, click here. To see the supporting documents submitted for the “Creating a Welcoming Experience” Award highlighting Visit Duluth’s tourism marketing efforts, click here.
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