MARYLAND OFFICE OF TOURISM ANNOUNCES ANNUAL TOURISM AWARD WINNERS

BALTIMORE, MD (November 8, 2023) – The 2023 Maryland Tourism Awards were presented today at the 42nd Annual Maryland Tourism & Travel Summit in Baltimore County, Maryland. The awards, given by the Maryland Department of Commerce Office of Tourism Development (OTD) and the Maryland Tourism Development Board (MTDB), recognize excellence and major contributions in expanding the market of Maryland tourism products, maximizing opportunities to generate overnight stays, leveraging partnerships, and showcasing Maryland as an exciting, must-see tourism destination.

Kevin Anderson, Secretary of Maryland Department of Commerce and Liz Fitzsimmons, Managing Director of Maryland Department of Commerce’s Division of Tourism and Film, presented the awards during a luncheon at the conference.

“The Maryland Tourism Awards showcase the influential people, programs and organizations that have made an economic impact on our state by encouraging visitors to stay longer and spend more here,” said Secretary Anderson.

The award categories and winners are:

Market Expansion Award: Awarded to Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County for successfully producing an extensive advertising campaign to expand an existing demographic and geographic market into the Philadelphia area.

• Making Waves in the City of Brotherly and Sisterly Love is a multimodal advertising campaign with the goal of positioning Annapolis and Anne Arundel County directly in front of Philadelphia’s dynamic workforce of 310,000 strong, 2 million residents, and the 24.3 million visitors who occupied Philadelphia's 30,000 hotel rooms and 5,900 short-term rentals annually. The robust campaign featured a 4.5-story billboard alongside transit shelters, digital light boxes and print ads resulting in an increase in web visitation, engagement, brand awareness and hotel bookings.

Maximizing Opportunities Award: The recipient of this award is recognized for successfully taking advantage of an existing trend to generate overnight stays, and presented to the Garrett County Chamber of Commerce for its Small Town Trail advertising campaign.

• Small Town Trail is a tourism promotion solely advertising the county’s eight incorporated small towns, highlighting activities and things to do in each town. Building from the heavy visitation to the Deep Creek Lake and Wisp Resort areas, the campaign is attributed to a 8.5% increase in lodging collections, 40% increase in admissions and amusement collections, 401% increase in visitor guide requests and nearly 80% increase of time spent online on the dedicated webpage.

Transactional Opportunities Award: Visit Howard County received this award for successfully creating a campaign to attract meeting planners to the county to increase revenue.

• Meetings Matter in Howard County is nothing short of out-of-the-box thinking. The 4th year event raised awareness about Howard County as a meeting and event destination with the goal of increasing group bookings. Rather than using a traditional trade show platform for designated meeting planners, the campaign targeted office parks throughout Maryland to reach decision-makers in small to mid-sized companies while promoting the County’s unique & boutique and conventional meeting spaces.

Leveraging Partnerships Award: This award was presented to Maryland’s Coast, Worcester County and the Town of Ocean City for successfully identifying and packaging complementary assets in the region in order to drive revenue with overnight stays with its “Maryland Coast Adventures” streaming series.

• "Maryland's Coast Adventures'' is a strategically crafted video series to lure visitors to explore the hidden gems and small businesses within the region. The series attracted enthusiastic viewership on YouTube channels associated with Maryland's Coast and Endless Golf, garnering over 3,170 views, and on local stations more than 73,000 views  in 37 individual zip codes. Furthermore, the impact of this partnership transcends state lines, resonating with audiences in neighboring states such as Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, New York,Ohio, and North Carolina, with the goal of generating overnight room stays, multiple and longer visits and a revenue boost to the county.

The Maryland Tourism Awards are open to all individuals, private businesses, governmental agencies and non-profit organizations offering a tourism product or service in Maryland. A panel of judges representing Maryland’s tourism community reviews each nomination.

About Maryland Department of Commerce Office of Tourism
The Maryland Office of Tourism is an agency within the Maryland Department of Commerce. Visitors to the state spent $19.4 billion on travel-related expenses in 2022. The Maryland tourism industry also generated $2.3 billion in state and local taxes, essentially saving each Maryland household $1,000 in annual taxes, and directly supported Marylanders with 124,000 jobs. For more information,
go to www.visitmaryland.org.

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