Find Your Element in Central Florida

Have you seen the new website? Visit Central Florida, the official destination marketing organization for Central Florida’s Polk County, has redesigned its tourism website, www.VisitCentralFlorida.org, which will be complemented by a newly launched marketing campaign. Visually pleasing images of Polk County’s tourism assets, that underscore the core elements of Air, Earth, Fire and Water, are key to the new marketing campaign’s tagline, “Find your element in Central Florida.”

The revamped website features spotlight pages that focus on each element, which click-through to landing pages that suggest activities and attractions related to each element. Images of kayakers enjoying Polk County waterways, golfers on stunning vistas of green, a couple floating in a fire-powered hot air balloon and children soaring through the air on roller coasters all represent featured elements. Ads supporting the new marketing campaign began running January 1 in publications throughout the U.S. and online. Key markets for Visit Central Florida include Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New York. In addition to these out of state markets, during the summer months Visit Central Florida will target in state travelers, who make up more than 50 percent of Florida visitors (according to VISIT FLORIDA statistics).

The tourism website is one of many important tools to attract visitors to Polk County and to assist them in planning their vacation. A major objective of the website is to insure that the information visitors are looking for is attractive, compelling and easily found. “It’s really about the conversion of visitors into Polk County customers,” said Mark Jackson, Director of Visit Central Florida. “Our e-marketing efforts are critical to success in an extremely competitive marketplace. In fact, 41 percent of travelers used user-generated content and 24.6 percent used social media for travel planning in 2012” said Jackson.

With society becoming increasingly mobile and on-the-go, more people rely on mobile devices for area information than ever before. PCTSM’s decision to offer a corresponding mobile version of the tourism website in 2012 has yielded great return on investment, with website visitation via mobile devices showing triple digit gains over the past year. To see the newly redesigned website, go to www.VisitCentralFlorida.org.