A Virginia Association of Counties representative on Oct. 20 presented Louisa County with a VACO Achievement Award recognizing the countys enhanced tourism program.

Jeremy Bennett, director of intergovernmental affairs for VACO, described the Achievement Awards as a competitive program recognizing innovative local-government programs. He told the board the judges praised Louisa Countys tourism program for using existing staff and transient occupancy tax revenues to grow promotional efforts and develop partnerships that other counties could emulate.

County tourism manager Cindy King described program features that helped win the award: a tourism advisory committee with diverse local stakeholders, an easy participation/process for tourism-support requests (informally referred to as a grant-like process), memoranda of understanding with partners, supplemental analytics that layer county and partner data, a small number of low-overhead software tools to aggregate partner event listings, and a tourism-ambassador program.

"The amount of staff time it takes is incredibly minimal," King said, describing the program as a low-cost, high-impact approach that leverages partner content and existing online tools.

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The board received the award and asked staff to post photos and materials on the county website. Staff said the program and supporting materials will be made available to other counties as a model.