VISIT DENVER CASE STUDY
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Flying a Mile Hi
Since 1908, Visit Denver, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, has promoted the Mile Hi City to convention and leisure travelers. A private, non-profit trade association, Visit Denver serves 1,200 business members. It managed a $12 million budget in 2009—the same year that metro Denver visitors spent $2.8 billion, supporting more than 50,000 local jobs.
Overview
Visit Denver came to Malenke | Barnhart for a new website that would help them sell Denver as a premier travel destination by immersing potential visitors in Denver’s appeal. Over our three-year partnership, we also performed a series of website updates aimed at improving the user experience.
Challenge
Visit Denver challenged Malenke | Barnhart to:
- Redesign and continually update its website.
- Inspire people to visit Denver.
- Deliver relevant information and useful tools for locals and visitors alike.
- Increase online advertising revenue.
- Encourage user interaction.
Solution
Malenke | Barnhart designed, wrote, developed and maintained a website that delivers:
- Large, real-world images.
- Useful tools and comprehensive information.
- Amazingly simple navigation.
- In-context ad and advertorial spaces.
- Original copy sharing locals’ insights.
- Blogs and user-generated content.
- Location-based content.
- Sitewide tagging to improve users’ search results.
Upshot
After launch, www.denver.org received upwards of 8 million unique visitors in 2009. The results and recognition poured in:
- Silver 2008 W3 Award from the International Academy of Visual Arts.
- Denver named by Travelocity’s blog as one of “10 US Cities with Tourism Sites to See“.
- Dramatically reduced administration time with the new CMS—even with more frequent content refreshes.
- 14% increase in unique website visits.
- 5% increase in page views.
- 15% better hotel occupancy than the national average.
- 57% more on-site ads sold year-over-year.
- Up to 8.6% click-through rate.
Additional Projects
After www.denver.org launched in 2008, we completed a number of additional projects for Visit Denver:
- Ongoing maintenance and usability improvements to www.denver.org over the next two years.
- Restaurant Week microsite (DenverRestaurantWeek.com) and mobile site design and development.
- Après Ski microsite (DenverApresSki.com) and mobile site design and development.
- Beer Week microsite design and development.
- Mile Hi Holidays microsite design and development.
- Denver Arts Week microsite (www.denver.org/DenverArtsWeek/) design and development.