Written by Christina Gordon Tuesday, 16 February 2010 14:45

The Halifax County Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) has re-launched the county’s tourism website, Visithalifax.com, adding many new bells and whistles to make the site both visually appealing and more user-friendly. Visithalifax.com makes use of many new social networking tools, such as Google maps, Facebook, Twitter, blogging and more!

“Eighty percent of travel is now booked through the internet, which makes our website crucial to our success,” said Lori Medlin, Executive Director of the Halifax County CVB.

“We have designed this site to make it easy for a visitor to book there hotel room, plan their activities and even find a local restaurant.  This site gives you everything from the latest weather to current traffic conditions on I-95. We hope residents will take advantage of all the site has to offer as well.”

Each national chain hotel and locally-owned hotel is sorted by town, and each hotel, bed and breakfast and camping facility has an individual page. Where available, visitors can go directly to the website of the hotel and book online. There is also a convenient chart whereby visitors can compare and contrast amenities of the area hotels.

Naturally, visitors like to sample an area’s local flavor or find familiar favorites among the national chain eateries available. Visithalifax.com simplifies the process by sorting our local eateries and national chain restaurants by town.

When searching for fun things to do, a host of options is just a click away. Visitors simply click on Play to see Halifax County’s must see & do attractions, golf options in the surrounding area, entertainment, annual festivals, historic attractions, outdoor recreation – fishing, hunting, outdoor attractions and equestrian activities, as well as unique shopping sorted by town.

Planning a trip around events or finding something to do on the weekends is easy. Visitors click on events and can choose to explore activities in calendar or list view and also can check out Halifax County’s growing number of active recreation events.

Under Media, visitors will find Halifax County videos, photos, blogs, downloadable brochures, our latest news and e-cards to send to friends.

The Area section offers weblinks for the many tourism and economic development partners in our area, region and state, as well as the latest I-95 traffic reports.

Planning trips for groups is simple as well with motorcoach-friendly dining options, sample itineraries, profile sheets on each area attraction, meeting & event planning kits, and assistance for family and class reunions.

If a visitor finds something on the website, say an attraction or event, that he would like to share with a friend or give himself a reminder of, the information can be emailed, posted to an Outlook calendar, or shared via many social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, Blogger, Google, Reddit and Yahoo. To stay on top of the latest news and events happening in Halifax County, visitors can also subscribe to the Halifax County CVB e-newsletter and weekly event blasts, as well as view the CVB’s latest News, Tweets and Facebook posts.

The CVB launched a Facebook page, Facebook.com/visithalifax over the summer, which currently has nearly 550 fans. You can also follow the Halifax County CVB on Twitter by searching HalifaxCVB.

The staff of the Halifax County CVB looks forward to continue serving both visitors and local residents with the latest travel and tourism information via Visithalifax.com.