{"id":144060,"date":"2024-10-18T13:29:14","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T18:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=144060"},"modified":"2024-10-18T13:29:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T18:29:17","slug":"kinney-ferris-honored-with-member-of-the-year-award-and-visit-oxford-honored-with-best-overall-digital-media-by-mississippi-tourism-association","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/kinney-ferris-honored-with-member-of-the-year-award-and-visit-oxford-honored-with-best-overall-digital-media-by-mississippi-tourism-association\/","title":{"rendered":"Kinney Ferris Honored with Member of the Year Award and Visit Oxford Honored with Best Overall Digital Media by Mississippi Tourism Association"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Visit Oxford MS<\/strong> received statewide recognition at The Mississippi Tourism Association<\/strong> (MTA<\/strong>)\u2019s annual tourism awards program held during Governor\u2019s Conference on Tourism <\/strong>at the Lake Terrace Convention Center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on October 2\u20134, 2024. Celebrating the destination\u2019s impact on the state\u2019s tourism industry, the awards presented to Visit Oxford MS were\u00a0MTA Member of the Year\u00a0<\/strong>to executive director Kinney Ferris<\/strong> and\u00a0Best Overall Digital Media<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKinney Ferris goes above and beyond every single day when it comes to leading our Visit Oxford team,\u201d said Mayor Robyn Tannehill<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cShe is a team player and is always ready to take on the next challenge. Kinney has a great vision for promoting Oxford and Mississippi, and I am so glad she is being recognized with this prestigious award. She is amazing and it is great to see we aren\u2019t the only people who think so!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Member of the Year award is presented to an outstanding volunteer member who goes above and beyond for the betterment of the organization. Ferris joined Visit Oxford (formerly the Oxford Convention & Visitors Bureau) in 2009 as the Office Manager, and over the past 15 years, she has served in various roles, including being named Deputy Director in 2017, where she played a crucial role in managing public relations and sales efforts. In 2019, she was appointed Executive Director and has since focused on and succeeded at an outcome-driven approach to marketing Oxford as a premier destination in the Southeast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am incredibly honored to receive MTA\u2019s Member of the Year award,\u201d said Kinney Ferris, executive director of Visit Oxford MS. \u201cThis recognition is a testament to the passion and dedication I have for promoting Oxford as a premier destination, which wouldn\u2019t be possible without the Visit Oxford staff, community partners, and everyone who shares in the vision of making Oxford a welcoming place for visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferris currently serves as President of the Destination Marketing Organization Association of Mississippi<\/strong>, on the board of the Mississippi Tourism Association<\/strong>, the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area<\/strong>, the Oxford-Lafayette County Economic Development Foundation<\/strong> and is a co-founder of the Cities of the SEC<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Best Overall Digital Media <\/strong>award is given to the tourism entity that has effectively integrated digital media into their marketing and communications plan by developing relationships and building valuable users. In addition, this entity has analyzed, adapted and improved their strategy to perfect their overall digital media efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The award recognizes Visit Oxford\u2019s \u201cA Place to \u2026 Your Story\u201d campaign, which launched July 2023 to differentiate Oxford\u2019s offerings through engaging content. Capturing intent-driven audiences with short-form videos and tailored messaging, Visit Oxford leveraged creative storytelling and a strategic mix of digital channels. The campaign successfully showcased Oxford as a unique destination for leisure and business travelers, driving over 60 million impressions, an increase of 144% organic website engagement and a 26% increase in revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visit Oxford MS received statewide recognition at The Mississippi Tourism Association (MTA)\u2019s annual tourism awards program held during<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":144061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[30500,30499,17646,5,30501,23081,642,7067,4],"class_list":["post-144060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-destination-marketing-organization-association-of-mississippi","tag-governors-conference-on-tourism-2","tag-kinney-ferris","tag-mississippi","tag-mississippi-hills-national-heritage-area","tag-mississippi-tourism-association","tag-ms","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/MTA-Member-of-Year-Left-to-right-Rochelle-Hicks-Director-of-Visit-Mississippi-Dr.-Rickey-Thigpen-President-of-Mississippi-To-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1703&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144062,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144060\/revisions\/144062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}