US Travel Awards

OK, things have been absolutely crazy! I will be finishing a few posts I started over the last two weeks! Unfortunately it has taken me a while to actually finish them because of how busy I am!

The US Travel Awards are a yearly competition for travel writers to compete for the best article about either the annual Pow Wow city or a United States destination. This is the second year for the competition. I also assisted last year as part of my professional experience hours, but as that was the first year, there were a lot of issues that needed to be ironed out.

This year I was responsible for rewriting the rules and entry form and making sure all of the due dates were appropriate. I never realized how much went into making sure every possible issue was covered in an entry form. Hopefully it saves us from all of the confusion from last year.

I had to contact the PR department at the United States Travel Association, my company's media designer (regarding the slide show that needs to be created), and also my boss. After talking to all of them, I was able to set the dates and get the official entry form sent out.

I also created a specific email account specifically for this contest to field questions and web entries for the competition. This has actually been so helpful because I can sort entries and questions and make sure that everyone's questions get answered as fast as possible! It also allows other people working on the contest to have access to everything we have received whenever they want.

This has been a lot more rewarding than I expected it to be. After last year I was actually dreading it, but by changing a lot of the rules and how the contest runs, I was able to save the company thousands of dollars and many many hours! I also saved myself from a lot of the very simple copying and shipping tasks that filled a lot of my available time last year.

The contest results are not announced until May, but I think this year things will really be a much better experience!