May 12--Art replaces skin in Miami's new tourism campaign, part of the destination's push for more affluent and sophisticated travelers.

Centered around the catchphrase "Miami: Express Yourself," the print campaign features prominent local artists in surreal interpretations of Miami-Dade locales. The aim is to move away from the sculpted and slinky young models in the current campaign and reintroduce Miami as a refined destination awash in culture.

"We've created a more sophisticated image of Miami," said Rolando Aedo, marketing director for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, which commissioned the new campaign. "We're shifting from style to more substance."

The strategy hopes to build on the popularity of Miami's new performing arts center and the annual Art Basel weekend, which centers on the country's biggest contemporary arts show. Overall, the campaign picks up on the notion that Miami is shedding its pop culture image of Miami Vice and hip-hop videos and emerging as a mature city holding its own in the area of high art.

"If I had said to you five years ago, Miami was going to be a center for art and culture, you'd have thought I was nuts," said Bruce Turkel, a partner in the Coconut Grove ad agency Turkel, which created the campaign.

In one ad, DJ Lauren Reskin, a Miami native, sits cross-legged before the city's skyline, with the buildings doctored to look like a stereo's equalizer. Another shows elderly men playing dominoes in Little Havana, surrounded by gleaming metal mannequins wearing dresses by local designer Rene Ruiz.

Skin plays a minor role in these images, an abrupt switch from the "Fashion Forward" campaign the bureau launched in 2003 that cast Miami as the setting for edgy couture ads. Sultry looks and skimpy clothing were the common denominators in those spots, while the fleshiest of the new batch features a man in knee-length shorts diving into an ocean of benches designed by Miamian Avner Zabari.

"A long time ago, I immersed myself in Miami," reads the quote from Zabari accompanying the ad. "I have yet to come up for air."

The high concept reflects a broader push throughout South Florida to lure more wealthy travelers as hotel rates continue to climb. With many budget motels lost to condominium conversions and upgrades this decade, hotels are charging on average between 50 and 60 percent more than they were five years ago, according to Smith Travel Research.

That's left tourism marketers to chase affluent travelers or risk losing business to competing destinations. Broward's tourism bureau is running television ads promoting Fort Lauderdale as luxury's new home and created a website promoting its priciest hotels: sunny.org/luxe.

The Keys also promotes itself as a low-key escape from a high-pressure lifestyle with its tourism tagline: "Come as you are."

But while room rates are up 41 percent in the island chain, Miami-Dade has seen a bigger shift: hotels there are charging 56 percent more than in 2003. Highlighting the push for a more refined audience, the tax-funded Greater Miami bureau will for the first time run its ads in a slate of high-end magazines including Architectural Digest, Gourmet and the New Yorker.

The campaign centers on art and design, with broad definitions for both. Hedy Goldsmith, pastry chef at Michael's Genuine Food and Drink in Miami's Design District, inspired an ad showing a giant strawberry being dipped into a giant pink fondue at the pool of the Raleigh in South Beach. Another shows children playing in the Key Biscayne sand, around letters designed by local artist Tao Rey.

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