NEW YORK CITY (Feb. 23, 2017) – At a black-tie gala dinner in New York City Tuesday night, Visit Tampa Bay earned four Adrian Awards for its work marketing the Tampa Bay area as Florida's most diverse destination for travelers from across the country and around the world.

President & CEO Santiago Corrada as one of the Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization. His co-winners included travel industry leaders from South Africa to Silicon Valley. Each honoree was recognized for being an outstanding leader whose strategies get results and have earned the respect of their peers in the travel industry. Corrada was the only tourism leader from Florida honored.

HSMAI, the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International, presents the awards each year.

Visit Tampa Bay earned a Gold, two Silvers, and a Bronze Adrian for its 2016 marketing efforts. The winning projects included:

• Gold Award, Public Relations: “Henry Brings Business to Tampa Bay,” an animated video made that features “Henry,” a meeting planner, and explains the far-reaching financial impact the convention and meeting industry has in Tampa Bay. Last year alone,
• Silver Award, Advertising: Greybeard the Tampa Bay Business Pirate, a humor-filled meetings campaign playing on Tampa Bay's historic Gasparilla festival and love of all things pirate that featured Greybeard – a bearded, suit-wearing pirate with a hook for a hand – pitching Tampa Bay as the perfect place for meeting planners to schedule a “parlay” for their association members.
• Silver Award, Advertising: Canada Takeover, a promotional event held in Toronto's Air Canada Center during a hockey game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
• Bronze, Digital Marketing: “Florida's Most Culinary Treasures,” a video project featuring some of Tampa Bay's most notable chefs, such as Greg Baker of The Refinery and Eric Lackey of Ulele.

“I'm incredibly proud of our Visit Tampa Bay team for showing every day the incredible value tourism brings to our region every day,” said Santiago Corrada, president and CEO of Visit Tampa Bay. “Our 'Henry' and Greybeard projects both shine a spotlight on the importance of the meetings industry, which is a staple of Tampa Bay's tourism messaging.”

VISIT FLORIDA's 2016 London Takeover, an integrated marketing campaign that included using wraps to turn four iconic London taxis into rolling Visit Tampa Bay billboards, also won a Gold for Digital Marketing.

“Everyone connected to Tampa Bay's tourism industry can be proud of the work our team did in 2016,” Corrada said. “Major awards like the Adrians show the world that Tampa Bay has arrived as an important travel destination.”

Last year, Visit Tampa Bay won a Platinum and Gold award for its Baycrafted campaign featuring the destination's growing craft beer industry. It also won awards for Winter's Obituary, a tongue-in-cheek adieu to the cold and snow published in the Chicago Tribune, and for Sounds of Summer radio advertisement.