FLAGSTAFF — City of Flagstaff’s tourism bureau, DISCOVER FLAGSTAFF, received accreditation “with distinction” from globally recognized Destinations International through the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program (DMAP) at their annual convention and also received the 2019 Governor’s Tourism Award for Outstanding Tourism Partnership – Rural for Flagstaff Lunar Legacy at the Arizona Governor’s Conference on Tourism.
“I asked the CVB (Discover Flagstaff) team to work on achieving our ‘destination marketing accreditation’ seal for Flagstaff, Arizona. This is in recognition of our destination organization’s commitment to industry excellence and meeting the industry standard for performance and accountability of destination marketing organizations from around the world. It’s important to note that only three of the newly accredited organizations received the accreditation ‘with distinction’ with Flagstaff being one of them. With distinction means we have gone above and beyond. I am not surprised, our team is amazing! Flagstaff is fortunate to have such a great team of professionals dedicated to strategically marketing the city as a destination and working so hard to get our city recognized time and again,” said Heidi Hansen, Economic Vitality Director.
Destinations International based in Washington D.C. connects associations and industries by representing a collective voice with destination management through forward-focused research and relevant data. Destinations International announced that 48 destination marketing organizations (DMOs) received a DMAP seal. To gain this momentous achievement, the accreditation program requires a destination organization to successfully comply with a multitude of mandatory and voluntary standards that span a variety of performance areas. The standards cover nearly all aspects related to the management and marketing of destination organizations including governance, finance, human resources, sales, communications, destination development and research. “By achieving DMAP accreditation, these destination organizations have demonstrated that they have developed strategies for the direction of their destination and the policies and procedures to safeguard the use of public dollars,” said David Holder, CDME, DMAP Chair and Vice President – Tourism of JLL – Hospitality and Tourism Group.
July also marked another esteemed achievement by Discover Flagstaff with a Governor’s award. The award recognizes excellence resulting from a co-operative partnership between two or more organizations that share resources to promote a common tourism experience or product that attracted domestic or international visitors to Arizona. Flagstaff Mayor Coral Evans said “we are extremely honored to be recognized by Arizona’s travel and tourism industry at the 2019 Governor’s Conference on Tourism with an award for an outstanding rural partnership on the Flagstaff Lunar Legacy campaign. The team at Discover Flagstaff worked cooperatively with Lowell Observatory, United States Geological Survey, Northern Arizona University, Downtown Business Alliance, Flagstaff Festival of Science and others to develop and deliver a creative Flagstaff Lunar Legacy campaign to the community and visitors. Discover Flagstaff positively impacts our community generating economic benefits, visitor education, destination awareness and inspiration at local, state, national and global levels. Congratulations!”
For more information contact Meg Roederer, Discover Flagstaff at (928) 213-2924 or mroederer@flagstaffaz.gov.