VSR wins Best Program Award for Santa Rosa Beer Passport

Destination Marketing Association of the West awarded four destinations with its prestigious Best Idea Program Award at their Education Summit held last week in Boise, ID. Visit Santa Rosa received one of the awards for its ultra-successful Beer Passport program. The annual Best Idea Program showcases innovative projects and creative marketing strategies as submitted by DMA West members.

Why Visit Santa Rosa’s Beer Passport Program?

Although other destinations offer various passport programs, even craft beer passports, Visit Santa Rosa’s efforts were recognized because of the timing and overall positive effect it had on visitors, locals and our breweries after last October’s fires. Here is a portion of the narrative that VSR Director of Sales, Charlene Lennon submitted:

“Promotion took place in a need time, not just because of the season but also because of the recent fires that hurt our local businesses. The Beer Passport program was created as a fun activity for visitors and locals as they collected their stamps. We also had beer passports available for hotel guests, many of whom at the time were staying in a hotel due to their displacement from the fires, and industry that was here helping with the needs of fire. It was a nice diversion activity, allowing them the opportunity to try something new and possibly find other businesses to patronize. We were able to leverage more earned media and promote at events and tradeshows. Brewers cheered that it made their month in an otherwise normally slow time. We also know that there were many only partially stamped, never redeemed, but certainly made an impact on those they visited. We distributed 2,500 passports and redeemed 400 completed. Our beer passport webpage received over 9,000 unique views.”

Congratulations to Kim Link, Group Sales and Services Manager at Visit Santa Rosa who collaborated with Santa Rosa area breweries to create the beer passport program and has managed the program for the past two years.