The website developed in partnership with ITI Digital receives the highest honor in its category at VISIT FLORIDA’s annual Flagler Awards.
The New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau has received the 2026 Henry Award for the New Smyrna Beach Area Website Redesign, developed in partnership with ITI Digital. Presented through VISIT FLORIDA’s annual Flagler Awards, the Henry Award recognizes the highest-scoring entry in its category and represents one of Florida tourism marketing’s top statewide honors.
The award was announced September 9 during the Chairman’s Dinner at the Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism in West Palm Beach, FL. Nearly 300 entries were submitted for the 2026 Flagler Awards, with an independent panel of 14 judges evaluating submissions based on creativity, innovation, production quality and effectiveness.
Now in its 26th year, the Flagler Awards celebrate outstanding tourism marketing initiatives from organizations promoting travel to and within the state. The New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau earned the Henry Award in the Websites category for a redesign that reimagined how travelers discover, explore and plan a visit to the area.
Florida Tourism’s Highest Honor in the Websites Category
Named in honor of Henry Flagler, the Henry Award is presented to the entry receiving the highest cumulative score from judges within its category. New Smyrna Beach earned the distinction among a field of digital projects representing destinations across Florida, including Bronze award winners St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & The Beaches Visitors & Convention Bureau and Visit Sebring, as well as Silver award winners; Visit Florida Keys & Key West and Visit Pensacola.
For New Smyrna Beach, the achievement reflects a digital transformation designed to strengthen how the area is represented online while responding to the evolving ways visitors research, discover and plan their experiences.
Bringing the New Smyrna Beach Experience Online
The redesign centered on creating an online experience that better reflects the character of New Smyrna Beach while making it easier for visitors to move from inspiration to planning.
Visitor behavior played a central role in that process. Visit New Smyrna Beach and ITI Digital analyzed GA4 data to identify frequently visited pages, common searches and trip-planning patterns. Those insights helped shape the site’s navigation, content hierarchy and overall user journey.
The result combines mobile-first design and destination storytelling with real-time events and business information, personalized content and Shelby the Turtle, an AI Travel Planner that helps visitors build itineraries around their travel dates and interests.
The broader ecosystem also includes a mobile app and community-facing site, allowing New Smyrna Beach to provide timely information to travelers, residents and local partners across multiple channels.
Website and Mobile App Content Connected Through One Platform
The honor follows measurable improvements in online visitor engagement.
During the first five months following launch, from December 1, 2025 through April 30, 2026, page views increased 30.1% to more than 607,900 compared with the same period a year earlier. Engaged sessions increased 31.3% to approximately 149,500, while engagement rate rose 35.1%.
Visitors also explored more content once they arrived, with views per session increasing 33.9% and events per session rising 22.7%.
During the same period, more than 1,436 events and 1,008 business listings were published through the platform, expanding the amount of current information available as visitors explored and planned their time in the area.
Together, these results reflect the goal behind the redesign: not simply to create a new website, but to provide a more useful way to discover everything the New Smyrna Beach area has to offer.
Celebrating on a Statewide Stage
The Henry Award was presented as part of the 2026 Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism, held from September 9th through 11th at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach.
The annual conference brought together tourism professionals, destination organizations, agencies, travel experts and state leaders from across Florida. As part of the event, the Flagler Awards celebrated the creativity and effectiveness of marketing efforts helping communities throughout the state reach and serve visitors.
New Smyrna Beach’s achievement in the Websites category places them among organizations honored across 18 areas of tourism marketing in 2026, spanning digital and social media, public relations, advertising, sustainability, integrated campaigns and more.
The Henry Award also marks a milestone in the longstanding relationship between Visit New Smyrna Beach and ITI Digital, celebrating the collaborative work behind an online presence designed to evolve alongside the community and the people who experience it.
About New Smyrna Beach
The New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau promotes New Smyrna Beach and the surrounding Southeast Volusia County area as a year-round Florida destination, connecting visitors with the region’s beaches, outdoor recreation, arts, dining, events and local experiences.
