Visit Lake County Wins Illinois Excellence in Tourism Award

LAKE COUNTY, IL - The Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau, which runs the Visit Lake County website, was honored with a prestigious Illinois Excellence in Tourism Award during the Illinois Governor’s Conference on Travel & Tourism in Springfield last week.

For their efforts on the summer campaign, “Let’s Go! Next Weekend,” with Six Flags Great America, KeyLime Cove Indoor Waterpark Resort and the Lake County Fair, Visit Lake County earned the award for ‘Best Cooperative Partnership’ in the state in 2016.

“Let’s Go!” was the rallying cry for inspiring summer family vacations in Lake County, according to a news release. The summer co-op campaign promoted Lake County while allowing key attraction, event and hotel partners to leverage their marketing budgets to increase media value and impact at various sponsorship investment levels.

The goal of Lake County’s summer campaign was to increase weekend getaway travel while highlighting the cooperative sponsors in a memorable way, according to the news release.

Visit Lake County used the dynamic, energizing “Let’s Go!” creative message to build top-of-mind awareness of Lake County as the ideal getaway for Chicagoans. With multiple sponsorship/co-op levels available, Lake County leveraged multi-channel media support for partners for a synergistic effect: enhancing the destination by highlighting its offerings, and increasing awareness of those offerings. As a result, Lake County was also able to differentiate itself from other similar family vacation options through the promotion of unique attractions and things to do.

The campaign ran for six weeks utilizing TV, radio and outdoor advertising. Visit Lake County also conducted a highly targeted digital marketing campaign on Facebook, Instagram and Pandora. To continue their presence in the Chicago market, Visit Lake County added Metra transit advertising.

“We are honored to be recognized for this creative and successful campaign which positioned Lake County as a compelling getaway and inspired travelers to visit here last summer,” said Maureen Riedy, Visit Lake County president.