North Dakota Tourism unveils summer media campaign

Money generated from a new one percent state lodging tax is being put to work this summer to bring more visitors to North Dakota. The money is being used to increase television, magazine and newspaper advertising throughout the upper Midwest, and in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada.

(PRWEB) July 20, 2003 -- The money generated from a new one percent state lodging tax is being put to work this summer to bring more visitors to North Dakota. The money is being used to increase television, magazine and newspaper advertising throughout the upper Midwest, with some international exposure as well.

North Dakota Tourism continues to build on its Legendary" theme this summer by focusing on the legends of Lewis and Clark and Sakakawea to a target market of leisure travelers living within 1,000 miles of the states borders, and history buffs motivated to travel to North Dakota for its rich cultural heritage with fun things to see and do.

Last year our $393,000 investment in advertising returned $29.2 million in visitor spending at hotels, motels, retail stores, recreation facilities and gas stations," said Sara Otte Coleman, director of North Dakota Department of Commerce Tourism Division. With the added funds for Lewis and Clark advertising, we will be able to place more ads with higher frequency in television, radio and newspapers and convey our message to millions of potential visitors."

Potential visitors can see the Legendary" Lewis and Clark message in television ads that began last week. The television campaign focuses on five priority cable markets including Minneapolis-St. Paul and Rochester, Minn.; Sioux City and Des Moines, Iowa; and Sioux Falls, S.D. A mix of womens, history, travel, family and news networks were selected to air the ads including The History Channel, CNN, Lifetime, TLC, A&E and the Discovery Channel.    

Complementing the television ad is a four-page newspaper insert placed in the same Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa markets.

The insert gets information into the hands of potential visitors to consider North Dakota as a travel destination. It gives them more details and provides a strong message to call or visit our Web site as they plan their trip to North Dakota," said Otte Coleman. Otte Coleman went on to say that ads are also being placed in North Dakota weekly and daily newspapers to encourage travel within the state.

Tourisms strategy not only capitalizes on American dollars, it extends into Canada to take advantage of the improved strength of the Canadian dollar. A newspaper insert and radio advertising will be placed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan, in late July and early August.

The Canadian dollar is the strongest it has been in many years and we want to use Lewis and Clark to take advantage of this exceptional opportunity," said Otte Coleman.    

The final component for the summer media campaign is an Internet keyword marketing strategy. The strategy will target people navigating search engines for words and phrases that relate to travel, North Dakota and Lewis and Clark.

Tourism is running a summer campaign to coincide with national travel research that shows people are delaying their summer travel plans and making summer vacation decisions closer to the actual time they travel. At the same time, North Dakota is seeing increased interest in the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial.

For example, over the Fourth of July weekend the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center-Fort Mandan in Washburn saw a four percent increase in visitors. Visitors at Fort Abraham Lincoln in Mandan were up 39.9 percent while Cross Ranch State Park near Center rose 44.7 percent over the holiday. Near Williston, Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site saw a 14.9 percent increase in visitors.

For more information on vacationing in North Dakota, log onto www.ndtourism.com or call 1-800-HELLO ND.