 |
 |
|
News for the Hospitality Executive |
|
|
| LANSING, Mich., May 3, 2007 - With the summer travel season
right around the corner, Michigan's tourism website, http://www.michigan.org,
is bringing potential travelers to Michigan in record numbers. According
to Hitwise, an international company which tracks traffic to major web
sites, http://www.michigan.org received the most traffic of any state tourism
website in April. Specifically, http://www.michigan.org attracted 6.85
percent of all of the traffic to the 50 state tourism websites, followed
by Virginia at 5.71 percent and Arkansas at 5.29 percent. Florida and Utah
rounded out the top 5 with 5.03 and 4.90 percent in a custom analysis of
http://www.michigan.org and the 49 other state tourism websites.
Michigan.org has hovered around the top spot for the past few months. During January 2007 http://www.michigan.org ranked 3rd, February saw a rise to the 2nd position where the site remained during the month of March. "We view this as a clear and important signal that people are looking to Michigan for their leisure travel," said George Zimmermann, Vice President of Travel Michigan. "We know from independent research that 65 percent of consumers who use http://www.michigan.org for tourism information, then travel to and within Michigan. So more web traffic means more business at Michigan destinations. We believe our efforts inside and outside of Michigan are making a substantial difference." One of those efforts is the new Pure Michigan advertising campaign, a fresh strategy to promote tourism in Michigan. The campaign is intended to entice out-of-state travelers to one place that still feels magic, mythic, authentic, untamed, unspoiled, uncompromised, timeless and true. It's Pure Michigan. The campaign communicates to consumers what makes Michigan special and identifies experiences that you can't find anywhere else. A television ad spotlighting Michigan's world-class golf debuted in April, while the remainder of the campaign will launch this month. Pure Michigan commercials can be viewed online at http://www.michigan.org/ads (the "Travelers Channel"). Michigan.org has continued to show growth in number of visitors over the years. Web surfers turned to the site 951,243 times during April 2007, up from 814,485 in April 2006, an increase of 17 percent. Consumers used the site at an average rate of 31,708 times a day in April 2007. Tourism is a vital industry in Michigan. Visitors spend $17.5 billion annually traveling in Michigan, generating $971 million in state taxes, and accounting for 193,000 jobs statewide. Travel Michigan, a division of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, is the State of Michigan's official agency for the promotion of tourism. Travel Michigan markets the state's tourism industry and provides valuable visitor information services. For more information on traveling in the State of Michigan, visit the official travel Web site at http://www.michigan.org. |
|
Kirsten Borgstrom
|
.
|
|
Please contact Hotel.Onlinewith your comments and suggestions.