The Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau received three tourism marketing achievement awards, including Best Of Show among all entries by destination marketing organizations across the state.

​The 2021-2022 Tourism Marketing Achievement Awards were presented by the N.C. Travel Industry Association during the N.C. Tourism Leadership Conference held Nov. 15-16 in Charlotte.

"We are honored to receive each of the marketing achievement awards, and most especially the Best of Show award, which was chosen from more than 60 submissions by statewide destination marketing organizations of all sizes and budgets,” said Kim Hufham, president and CEO of the New Hanover County Tourism Development Authority. “We are proud to serve our travel partners and to represent the destination with award-winning marketing programs. The CVB shares this industry recognition for marketing excellence with the agencies that worked with our team to create and successfully execute a strategic paid and earned media campaign.”

The CVB scored a Platinum Award in the leisure marketing category for the organization’s “Hallow-Scream” campaign and brought home a Gold Award in the community relations category for its 2022 Local Tourism Ambassador Video.

The Wilmington and Beaches “Hallo-Scream Getaway” campaign was also selected as Best Of Show by a panel of industry judges as "the one shining example among all entries that best exemplifies the complete package of innovation, creativity and results," according to the release.

The CVB developed the “Hallo-Scream Getaway” social and web campaign to address lingering challenges of COVID 19 and take advantage of the national publicity generated by the Wilmington-made film Halloween Kills, the release stated. 

"The campaign’s creative elements tapped into Wilmington’s thriving film community by highlighting locations from locally filmed horror productions, thereby supporting film tourism marketing efforts and increasing awareness of Wilmington as a filmmaking destination," according to the release. "In addition to the social campaign, the CVB partnered with Visit NC to execute a Halloween Kills trip giveaway and social promotion for the premiere of the film. Winners attended a red-carpet premiere of Halloween Kills and received a Hollywood East-themed trip to Wilmington."

Developed and executed to promote awareness of and visitation to the destination during September and October (fall shoulder season), the winning campaign included an event-specific landing page, blog, eblast, social feed posts across all social media platforms, the release stated.

"The campaign’s intent was to highlight everything visitors could do in-market to make the most of a Halloween getaway to one of the South’s most actively haunted cities—from family-friendly activities to paranormal excursions," according to the release.

According to Shawn Braden, the CVB’s executive vice president of marketing and strategy, while there are many factors beyond marketing efforts that impact travel to the Wilmington area, including the work of our tourism industry partners, New Hanover County room occupancy tax collections reported record 2021 increases in September (+22.53%) and October (+36.19%), as compared to the previous record set in 2019 (pre-COVID). Additionally, Halloween-themed campaign web traffic and social media engagement increased year-over-year by 27% and 106%, respectively, the release stated.

Intended for a local audience, the Local Tourism Ambassador Video was created "to instill a sense of community pride for Wilmington and Beaches as a great place to live, work and play; to demonstrate the key role that tourism plays in quality of place; and convey how residents help ensure responsible growth when they share our destination and act as tourism ambassadors," the release stated.

The video debuted in May during the CVB’s annual National Travel and Tourism Week industry travel rally and continues to air on government cable access stations NHC-TV and GTV8. It can also be viewed online.