Vizergy Digital Travel Marketing recently won Interactive Media Awards (IMA) on behalf of two clients – Beacon South Beach Hotel in Miami and Grand Historic Venue in Baltimore. The IMA recognizes the highest standard of excellence, honor and outstanding achievement in website design and development. The awards are based largely on design execution and infrastructure, but also on actual production, like the 12:1 ROI produced for Beacon South Beach. Vizergy, which has secured these awards for six consecutive years, won in the Hotel/Resort and Events categories.

"Vizergy is our valued partner," said Veronika Volovik, Web Marketing Director for Beacon South Beach. "Having worked with them for almost two years, we know their services answer the unique needs of our property. Beacon South Beach Hotel has a dynamic digital marketing strategy, and Vizergy is able to satisfy our needs. Our dedicated Account Executive, Ian DeSousa, is a pleasure to work with. His level of professionalism and understanding of our product, as well as his ability to quickly complete projects and deliver results, are invaluable for such a high energy client like Beacon South Beach. One of the key points for us is Vizergy's content management system, which is unlike any other we have utilized. It allows for a great level of customization across the site, while still keeping an intuitive and user-friendly interface. One can modify a wide range of elements such as copy, imagery, widgets and even create custom code for higher levels of editing. Another feature we value is their Hotel Web Management Platform with real-time data and reporting. As this award shows, our partnership with Vizergy was one of our most important marketing decisions."

Beacon South Beach— Source: Vizergy
Beacon South Beach— Source: Vizergy

The Beacon South Beach Hotel, an upscale independent boutique property in the heart of Miami's South Beach, combines historic Art Deco aesthetics with a chic, modern design and 75 richly appointed rooms. The hotel wanted to enhance their online presence with a website that distinctly fits their unique style and location. Vizergy's team met with the property's staff, did extensive homework on the area and designed a fully optimized site that brings the hip image of the property directly to travel shoppers. An intuitive navigation allows visitors to quickly learn about the property and area, from room amenities to nightlife, and book rooms across all devices and screens. Overall, the design "feels" like South Beach, which was the ultimate design goal.

Beacon South Beach has experienced impressive results since going live with their new website and mobile site in early 2013:

  • ROI = 12:1 in 2013
  • Nearly 250,000 website visitors year-to-date in 2014, a 72% increase over 2013
  • Roughly 12% of visitors delivered to the booking engine
  • 40% of total traffic produced by search engine optimization (SEO) efforts on Google and Bing
  • Mobile accounts for 7% of overall traffic
Grand Historic Venue— Source: Vizergy
Grand Historic Venue— Source: Vizergy

Grand Historic Venue, which features 45,000 sq. ft. of event space and adjoins the Embassy Suites Baltimore Inner Harbor hotel, was in need of a complete digital refresh, from website to marketing strategy and support. Working directly with Kokua Hospitality to create a website specifically for the event space was an exciting challenge. The site was built, so that no matter what device travel shoppers are on, imagery takes up the entire screen. This allows the property to best showcase the historic and grandiose charm, while still adhering to Vizergy natural search, mobile and social tactics that are driving forces in digital marketing.

Grand Historic Venue's online performance supports how Vizergy's data-driven marketing strategies continue to produce positive results:

  • Over 75,000 total website visits
  • Nearly 350 RFPs completed year-to-date in 2014, a 266% increase over 2013
  • 34% of total traffic attributed to SEO
  • Mobile traffic accounted for 13% of overall website traffic in year one

"The Grand Historic Venue website was a collaborative effort among all, Kokua and Vizergy," said Karen Wiley, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Kokua Hospitality. "Vizergy was able to take spectacular photography and a ton of customized wants and desires and roll them into the most beautiful and innovative site for a meeting and wedding event destination there could be in the U.S. This site receives so many positive comments that it makes all the time and hours poured into it, well worth it. Vizergy has one of the best design teams in the industry."

About The IMA Awards

The Interactive Media Awards™ recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design and development and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement. Created by the Interactive Media Council, Inc. (IMC), a nonprofit organization of leading web designers, developers, programmers, advertisers and other web-related professionals, the competition is designed to elevate the standards of excellence on the Internet and offer winners a boost in marketing and exposure. IMC serves as the primary sponsor and governing body of the Interactive Media Awards™, establishes the judging system and provides the judges for the competition.

About Vizergy®

Vizergy is an award-winning hotel Internet marketing company that empowers hoteliers to know more, do more and achieve more – with the ultimate goal of delivering maximum online revenue. The company uses data driven decisions to provide strategic guidance in the evolving world of online marketing. Online marketing services include search engine optimization, pay-per-click and display advertising, local marketing, website and mobile website design and development, reservation software and advanced analytics. Since 1998, Vizergy has propelled thousands of branded and independent hotels, resorts and hotel management companies to success.

For more information on Vizergy and its services, please visit vizergy.com, call William Bellis at 904.389.1130 Ext. 171 or email [email protected]. Join us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Kristen M. Poillon
Director of Corporate Marketing
(904) 389-1130 x 171

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