LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism hopes recession-related cutbacks by competitors will help the Natural State gain a larger slice of the tourism market.
The department's 2010 spring and summer campaign has a $6.67 million budget, up from $5.96 million a year earlier.
"Arizona has substantially reduced their marketing campaign, and people in Arizona are trying to get Texans to fly over New Mexico and go to Phoenix and Tucson," Joe David Rice, tourism director, said Thursday. "When the competition like Arizona is having to retrench, that's going to help us." Rice said the 11.9 percent increase in the marketing campaign comes despite falling tourism tax collections.
For the first six months of 2009, Arkansas' tourism tax collections fell to $5,886,447 down 0.6 percent compared with the corresponding 2008 period, Rice said. Most of the 2 percent tax comes from hotels and other lodging.
"The majority of [the 2009 decline] would be business travel," Rice said. "Pulaski County, which gets a lot of business travel, is down 11.6 percent for the same six months. The real indicator is Benton County," home to Wal-Mart and J.B. Hunt headquarters. "Their collections are off 14.8 percent."
Besides the national recession, Arkansas weather in the first half of the year, including an ice storm early in the year and a "miserably wet Memorial Day weekend," also hurt tourism, Rice said.
Little Rock-based marketing agency CJRW, or Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods, on Thursday showed at the Statehouse Convention Center a multimedia presentation of its plans for the department's spring and summer tourism campaign. The proposal was approved unanimously by the Arkansas State Parks, Recreation and Travel Commission.
A series of road-trip theme ads are new for the season. Only 10 percent of tourists arrive by air, according to the department.
"Can a roadtrip be fueled by Bar-B-Q?" asks a print adtouting the Arkansas Delta. "It takes 4,000 years to produce the 143 degree spring waters, but only a few hours for you to get here" reads an ad for Hot Springs. "Rev up your senses," says an ad showing motorcyclists on scenic drives.
Thirty-seven percent of advertising money will be spent in magazines, followed by about 33 percent on TV ads.
Commission member Bill Barnes, of Mountain Harbor Resort and Spa at Lake Ouachita, praised this year's campaign as "the most diverse" he has seen, adding that it was balanced in its representation of the four corners of the state.
The ads emphasize attractions including racetrack betting at Hot Springs and West Memphis and the World of the Pharaohs: Treasures of Egypt Revealed exhibit opening today at the Arkansas Arts Center and running through July.
An arts and culture "landing page" is proposed for Arkansas.com, which would help pave the way for the opening of the 100,000-square-foot Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, expected to happen in 2011.
The department hopes to put American Idol winner Kris Allen, a native Arkansan and resident of Conway, on Arkansas.com and would feature his favorite places in the state.
In 2008, about 23.8 million visitors traveled to the state, compared with 23.9 million in 2007.
Tourism officials say they are particularly aiming to continue recent efforts to focus on the people in neighboring states who travel but historically haven't considered Arkansas.
Department advertising last spring led to an estimated 49,000 such trips in the summer. Every advertising dollar spent to attract such visitors generated about $2.35 in tax revenue, said Rice, the tourism director.
Business, Pages 31, 36 on 09/25/2009