great news as Kentucky signed a promising individual.

great news as Kentucky signed a promising individual.

For its “Book Now, Bourbon Later” digital marketing strategy, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail was awarded a Gold Traverse.

Mandy Ryan receiving the Gold Traverse Award from the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. (Included photo)
The director of Kentucky Bourbon Trail Experiences, Mandy Ryan, remarked, “We are overjoyed to receive this Traverse Award.” “It’s amazing to be acknowledged for our efforts—the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and our member distilleries work hard every day to enhance the visitor experience in our state.”

In 2022, the “Book Now, Bourbon Later” campaign was developed in reaction to the post-pandemic spike in tourism, which presented new difficulties for the majority of distilleries in the hospitality sector. Difficulties include visitors arriving on tours without bookings, fewer visitors per tour, and tour routes being rerouted to avoid delicate manufacturing areas regions, burnout and a lack of workers, and the often grumpy and unprepared “revenge tourists.” Three primary objectives guided the launch of the digital campaign:

Visitors were scheduling trips around 12 days in advance in Q2 of 2022, according to statistics from AnyRoad, our partners in booking software. Eric Gregory, President of KDA, stated, “They were scheduling tours 35–37 days in advance by Q4.” It’s a significant shift.

“Together, the campaign inspired visitors to take initiative and integrate themselves into the Kentucky Bourbon community.” According to Gregory, it functioned as a brand awareness initiative, exposing the Kentucky Bourbon Trail to 378K individuals over 1.3 million times and fostering the growth of the bourbon industry in local towns throughout the state.

More than 75% of KBT visitors are from outside of Kentucky, so it’s more important than ever to arrange your travels in advance.

Travel and tourist companies as well as marketing associations in Kentucky competed for Award Traversal in eleven categories. The Traverse Awards are judged by a group of specialists from outside the state’s tourism sector. The concept, inventiveness, outcomes, and influence are among the award criteria. For the 2023 competition, 199 submissions total from all throughout Kentucky were submitted.

“The 2023 Traverse competition was as close as it was intense, with nearly 200 entries, and based on the judges’ comments about the overall high quality of the entries,” stated Hank Phillips, President & CEO of KTIA. “The bigger picture of the awards is how they showcase the innovative and results-driven talent found throughout Kentucky’s travel and tourism sector. Over 75 million people visited Kentucky last year as a result of this skill and inventiveness, bringing with them the numerous advantages that travel offers the state’s residents.

The Travel Kentucky Despite the pandemic’s catastrophic effects, Kentucky’s tourism industry—which brought in $12.9 billion to the state’s economy in 2022—is represented and served by the Industry Association. The association, which has around a thousand members, offers business growth opportunities, education, and information to its members in addition to advocating on their behalf. The group also aims to educate the public about the significant benefits that tourism offers the people of Kentucky in terms of employment, the economy, and tax income.