Parks & Tourism Unveils $8 Million Marketing Plan

After seeing the new 2011 marketing presentation for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, it’s obvious why the department actively fought a recent legislative effort to changes Arkansas’ motto from “The Natural State” to “The Land of Opportunity.”

The roughly $8 million marketing campaign is built almost entirely around use of the word, “natural,” according to the presentation made Monday (Mar. 7) during the Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism.

Advertising built for television, Internet, magazines, radio and other media encourage the audience to be “Spoiled by nature,” “Beautiful by nature,” “Wholesome by nature,” “Authentic by nature” and to do other things “by nature.”

An ad promoting the Fort Smith region features an overhead show of hundreds of people in Harry E. Kelley Park in downtown Fort Smith with the headline “Wild by nature” — a reference to the region’s wild frontier history.

Advertising targeted to motorcycle groups encourage them to “Rev it up by nature.”

Joe David Rice, director of tourism for the department, mentioned the effort to change the state’s motto.

“We hope we’ve seen the last of that for a long time,” Rice said to the approval of a large crowd of tourism industry business owners and promoters gathered in Little Rock for the conference.

Early in the 88th Arkansas General Assembly, Rep. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, introduced HB 1005, which would change the state’s nickname from "The Natural State" to "The Land of Opportunity." Sanders said his bill would be a throwback to a motto started by Gov. Francis Cherry in 1953.

But Richard Davies, director of the Arkansas Parks and Tourism department, said his board opposed the change since millions of dollars have been invested in "The Natural State" motto.

"We have more brand equity in the ‘Natural State’ than almost any other state except ‘Virginia is for lovers’ and ‘I love New York,’" Davies told a House committee. "We think it [the motto] has served the state well. We think changing the state back to the ‘Land of Opportunity’ would be a step backwards.”

Sanders eventually pulled the bill.

MEDIA STRATEGY
The 2011 media strategy to boost what Parks & Tourism officials say was a $5.453 billion industry in 2010 is to target adults 25-54, with a focus on women and families with children. Adults 50 and up with an emphasis on women is the secondary target.

As it did in 2010 and previous years, the marketing dollars will be spent in Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. During 2010, the top states supplying visitors to Arkansas’ tourism states were Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Illinois.

The top five counties visited by tourists during 2010 were Garland County (Hot Springs), Pulaski, Benton, Carroll and Fulton.

As to how the about $8 million budget breaks down, the department plans to spend  40% on television, 25% on magazine, 16% Internet, 6% newspaper and about 4% on radio.

It was mentioned several times during that “big movement” continues to be seen in the number of people who use the Internet and mobile apps to plan vacations.

Parks & Tourism officials also plan to soon unveil a new website, replacing a look that has been maintained for about four years.

2010 TOURISM DOLLARS
At the end of Monday’s presentation, the Parks & Tourism Department released the 2010 preliminary figures on the value of business and tourism travel to different tourism districts in Arkansas.

Following is information on the top five regions in terms of total travel expenditures.

Heart of Arkansas (Faulkner, Lonoke, Prairie, Pulaski and Saline counties)
Total travel expenditures: $1.632 billion
Travel generated payroll: $336,189 million
Travel generated jobs: 14,602

Northwest Arkansas (Benton, Carroll, Madison, Washington counties)
Total travel expenditures: $691.391 million
Travel generated payroll: $151.964 million
Travel generated jobs: 9,640

Diamond Lakes (Clark, Garland, Hot Spring, Montgomery and Pike counties)
Total travel expenditures: $676.065 million
Travel generated payroll: $120.474 million
Travel generated jobs: 8,086

Western Arkansas Mountain Frontier (Crawford, Franklin, Logan, Polk, Scott and Sebastian counties)
Total travel expenditures: $404.906 million
Travel generated payroll: $66.767 million
Travel generated jobs: 3,652

Ozark Mountain Region (Baxter, Boone, Marion, Newton and Searcy counties)
Total travel expenditures: $309.248 million
Travel generated payroll: $56.982 million
Travel generated jobs: 3,594

Michael Tilley with our content partner, The City Wire, is the author of this article. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].