UTAH OFFICE OF TOURISM Advertising and marketing the state to visitors around the world. The Utah Office of Tourism brands and promotes Utah’s great experiences for visitors and citizens in a way that enhances our quality of life. More visitors are coming to Utah than ever before, since the Governor’s Office of Economic Development’s Utah Office of Tourism launched its new “Life Elevated” brand in April of 2006. Last year, more than 19 million visitors were attracted to Utah’s five national parks, more than 40 state parks, recreation areas, historical sites, and other major attractions. Governor Huntsman’s administration is committed to enhancing Utah’s national and international image and promoting the state as a year-round destination. Utah lawmakers have appropriated $11 million dollars for the next fiscal year for out-of-state advertising; the same level of funding the tourism office has received for the past couple of years to brand Utah. The 2006 Summer Marketing campaign included television, print, and online advertising in Denver, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. The 2006/07 Winter campaign focused on the Los Angeles and New York markets, and a national cable buy generated a record number of phone calls to the agency’s live Call Center and e-mail inquiries. Highlights: • Utah Office of Tourism advertising has been highly successful this past fiscal year, generating a record number of requests for travel guides. More than 200,000 award-winning Utah Travel Guides were printed and distributed. An additional 40,000 travel guides are being reprinted to handle the requests for Utah tourism information while the 2008 guide is being created. In addition, the current travel guide was named the best travel guide in the country by the National Council of State Tourism Directors (NCSTD). • Visits to www.utah.com went from 305,286 in the spring of 2006 to 372,026 this year, up nearly 22%. For the same time period, requests for travel guides from www.utah.com are up more than 450%. For March, April, and May, incoming toll free calls jumped from 8,421 in 2006 to 19, 058 in 2007, an increase of 126.3%. •
A Madden Preprint Insert last spring resulted in 80,000 brochure requests, one of 2007 Utah Summer Print the largest generators of leads in Madden Campaign ad history. More than 1 million newspaper insertions ran in newspapers in California, Colorado, and Nevada on Sunday, April 29, 2007.
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In the last fiscal year, the Board of Tourism Development funded 51 Cooperative Marketing applications for $1.96 million from non-profit tourism entities in 22 Utah counties. Forty-three applications were recently approved for nearly $2.25 million in marketing the Utah “Life Elevated” brand in FY 2007/08.
Web visits to www.utah.travel for the spring/summer ad campaign jumped from 110 in 2006 to 19,319 this year, an astounding increase of 17,462.7%.
• The Utah Office of Tourism promoted the state at trade shows in Canada, China, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Marketing efforts were also conducted in Mexico and The Benelux, and
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Governor’s Office of Economic Development • Annual Report 2007
