Electronic Marketing - Events on Virginia.org
Events are one of the most visited areas on Virginia.org. Be sure to add your event and take advantage of the millions of visitors the site receives every year.
Events that are listed in the Virginia Travel Guide are pulled from Virginia.org. Events for the following year (ie 2009) must be entered onto the site by August 1, 2008. The events are downloaded from the site, edited and then sent to the guide publisher for inclusion in the guide. Not all events can be included in the guide. VTC reserves the right to edit those as necessary for the guide inclusion. The media description must be filled out as well to be included in the guide.
Events are also used in feature stories on Virginia.org. It is important to update event dates, especially for annual events, on your listings. Do not create New Listings for an event that is already in the database. The features stories linking to that event will result in a "page not found" error. Many of our feature stories are evergreen stories and link to events that are annual.
Be sure to check the guidelines for events at the end of this document. Be sure to put in the correct dates and times for Events. Events must have specific beginning and ending dates. Your event will not appear on the site without having dates attached. If it is a yearly event, make the description generic enough that it will describe it for the following year as well. You can add multiple year's dates to the listing.
How Do I Participate?
All you have to do is visit the Administration Tool for the Virginia.org web site and follow the easy steps to enter your Event details. If you have questions regarding creating an account or entering information, contact Casey Higgins at VTC at 804-545-5557 or chiggins@virginia.org
Guidelines For Events & Festivals Listings For Virginia Tourism Corporation Calendars and Virginia.org:
- All events must be submitted through
the Administration Tool on the Virginia.org website. Events are pulled
from the database listings on Virginia.org for possible inclusion in
the Virginia is for Lovers Travel Guide.
- Events must be open to the public. Only events with confirmed
dates will be accepted. An exact date must be given (not the "third
Saturday in August" or "Labor Day Weekend.") Events
must have the place where it will be held in the Venue field and its
physical address (no P.O. Boxes) in the Address field to avoid rejection.
Example: If the event is held at the Richmond Coliseum, enter "Richmond
Coliseum" in the Venue field and enter the coliseum's street
address in the Address field. Our MapQuest mapping feature must have
the physical address in order to find the exact location of the event.
- Location of events should reflect
cities or towns shown on the official state transportation map published
by VDOT.
- Due to space limitations, VTC
reserves the right to edit and/or eliminate events from inclusion in
the Travel Guide.
- Phone numbers must be for public
contact. Try to list a phone number that is convenient
for the traveling public. For example, if a home number of an event
volunteer is listed and no one is home in the daytime, this is inconvenient
to visitors and could affect attendance at your event. Contact the local
tourism office or chamber of commerce and determine if their number
can be listed rather than a private number. Make sure the office staff
is knowledgeable about your event and can answer inquiries from the
public.
- Web addresses and links on VTC’s website should go directly to the page on the website where event information is located.