Tourism Richmond’s Dining Blog Wins Award

Lindsay Anderson, 365 Days of Dining | BCBusiness
Lindsay Anderson, the blogger behind Tourism Richmond’s 365 Days of Dining.

The organization’s 365 Days of Dining campaign is honoured with a Canadian Tourism Award

Last week Tourism Richmond’s year-long dining campaign, www.365daysofdining.com, took home the Social Media Initiative of the Year Award at the Tourism Industry Association of Canada’s (TIAC) annual Canadian Tourism Awards.

“I can’t tell you how thrilled and honored I am of this award and of the work of the team,” says Tracy Lakeman, CEO of Tourism Richmond.

The the 365 Days of Dining blog ran from June 2012 to June 2013 and focused primarily on the city’s Asian food scene. With more than 800 eateries, the idea to feature local dining daily had been in the works for years.

“Nobody had really been highlighting the work of bloggers so we felt that this was a really innovative way to work with bloggers and to highlight our food,” says Lakeman.

Lindsay Anderson was hired to blog as an unfiltered visitor to the city every day of the year following a global search for the right blogger. The campaign exceeded all targets with a 63-per-cent increase in Facebook followers and over half a million visits to the blog, which still receives over 5,000 hits monthly. Local restaurants also saw results from the blog.

“We heard that quite regularly they were getting new customers and that they saw an automatic increase in sales,” says Lakeman, adding that many restaurants would have patrons ordering menu items they had seen on the 365 Days of Dining blog.

This isn’t the blog’s first award, having already won the Best Social Media Campaign award at the Vancouver Social Media Awards and Innovation of the Year from the Richmond Chamber of Commerce. Tourism Richmond’s campaign beat four other finalists for the Canadian Tourism Award, including campaigns from Tourism Whistler and Ottawa Tourism. The Social Media Initiative of the Year Award recognizes the year’s most outstanding social media marketing initiative and was judged on criteria including engagement with the target audience and the conversion of awareness into visitor traffic.