Utah Office of Tourism
OVERVIEW U.C.A. 63N-7 The mission of the Utah Office of Tourism (UOT) is to promote Utah tourism to out-of-state travelers and to promote tourism-based economic development and quality of life in Utah. To advance these goals, UOT runs year-round marketing, public relations and travel trade programs to inspire domestic and international visitors to visit Utah and also provides the planning information travelers need for a successful trip. In 2014, travelers to Utah spent $7.8 billion, generating $1.07 billion in state and local tax revenues and supporting an estimated 137,192 jobs statewide. Key drivers are UOT’s two marketing campaigns, the three-season The Mighty 5® national parks campaign and a new ski campaign, Find Your Greatest®, which uses six Utah ambassadors to personalize Utah’s ski and snowboard experiences. Our market research and strategic planning target the geographic locations and consumer segments with the greatest potential economic value to the state. FY2015 marked an important year for UOT’s international marketing, with new in-market representatives in Australia, China, Canada and Germany. International marketing is done in collaboration with Brand USA, a national public/private partnership that promotes the United States to international visitors. Brand USA provides a 15–100 percent financial match to our international marketing expenditures, allowing UOT to reach a larger audience at a lower cost. Domestic public relations continued to focus on earned media coverage in 100 top travel and lifestyle publications. Some 60 articles were placed in the top 50 publications and 90 articles within our top 100 publications. UOT’s own communications channels, website, social media, e-newsletter and publications saw significant growth and renewal. Everything from the complete relaunch of the consumer website, www.visitutah.com—which, since launch, has seen a 667 percent increase in mobile site visitors over the prior year—to UOT’s fastest-growing social channel, Instagram, which posted 10x growth in followers in FY2015, shows significant growth in UOT’s reach. This year UOT also launched a new rural tourism initiative, dubbed “Rourism.” Tourism marketing guru Roger Brooks is leading the intensive yearlong program. Brooks is helping local leadership of four pilot counties—Box Elder, Daggett, Emery and Kane—identify their top tourism attractions, focus their marketing efforts and build stakeholder support for expanding their tourism economies in their respective counties.
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Governor’s Office of Economic Development • 2015 Annual Report • www.business.utah.gov
