Visit Ventura is proud to announce it is a finalist for the Place Brand of the Year category of the City Nation Place Awards 2023 for the organization’s involvement and leadership in hosting the X Games 2023 in Ventura. Visit Ventura is the only USA finalist in this category.
The City Nation Place Awards celebrate and benchmark the very best in strategic and effective thinking for place branding and marketing. As the only specialist global awards designed to showcase the best approaches to building and managing the reputation of destinations, the City Nation Place Awards attract entries from across the world. Winners of the awards serve as best-practice case studies for reference and inspiration for cities and destinations around the globe.
“Being announced as a finalist feels like we’re already a winner!” said Marlyss Auster, President and CEO of Visit Ventura. “Our whole team is beaming with pride knowing that our hometown is receiving international recognition with this award. We succeeded in hosting a big-time event while also staying true to our roots. I am so proud of what we achieved this past summer as a community. We made history.”
The Place Brand of the Year category awards destinations that demonstrate a committed approach to support the long-term goal of promoting the place brand by capitalizing on an event or implementing a project. Visit Ventura’s entry titled “A Small-Town Story of a Big-Time Event: the Journey of X Games 2023 Coming to Ventura,” outlined ways we leveraged regional partner and stakeholder collaboration, community involvement, local business engagement, and sustainability to ensure the X Games was a success in our hometown. By hosting an event that not only is internationally acclaimed as the world’s largest extreme sports competition but one that also matches Ventura’s ethos and love for the outdoors, Visit Ventura elevated our destination to world recognition.
An international panel of judges determined Visit Ventura’s entry as a finalist for the category alongside entries from New Zealand, Brussels, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Lithuania. City Nation Place Awards winners will be announced at City Nation Place Global 2023 in London on November 9.
