Entered by Vladimir Jones

As agency of record for Visit Santa Fe (VSF), Vladimir Jones (VJ) faced the challenge of helping a culturally rich but competitively smaller destination not just compete against much larger DMOs, but succeed using data as a building block. Success required more than strong creative (and honestly, there are few destinations as creatively inspiring as Santa Fe); it also required a data-led strategy to deeply understand travel consumer behaviour, from intent signals through conversion to post-visit engagement.

The focus: leveraging data to ensure Santa Fe has a competitive advantage among all destinations globally. The vision, born in the uncertainty of COVID, was to use data as a continuous engine for growth, enabling more precise segmentation, behavioural and geographic targeting, and an always-on audience nurturing and engagement strategy for The City Different. What began as a survival strategy has since evolved to a fully integrated Customer Data Platform (CDP), connecting insights across the entire visitor journey.