FORT SMITH - Sipping from a fire hose is one way an Arkansas tourism marketing team described the process of wading through a sea of information when planning a vacation using the Internet.
Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism officials announced Tuesday that a new marketing strategy for next year seeks to simplify vacation planning for potential tourists; increase use of the Internet and social media for vacationer planning, market research and visitor feedback; and create destination marketing areas that focus on the special features in the different areas of the state.
The first of eight presentations around the state over the next week was made Tuesday in Fort Smith by state Tourism Director Joe David Rice and consultants from marketing strategist Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods and Web-services company Aristotle Inc., both of Little Rock.
Senior Vice President Brian Clark of Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods said the team that designed the strategy was traveling around the state to present specific marketing plans and advertising for different sections and to answer questions and get feedback from tourism-industry members in those areas.
The team made a similar presentation Tuesday in Rogers and plans to go to Mountain Home and Jonesboro today, Little Rock and Hot Springs on Tuesday and Magnolia and Dumas next Wednesday, according to a news release from the Tourism Department.
Rice said he was optimistic about Arkansas tourism for next year.
“We’re excited about 2014. Our product continues to improve, we think the economy is getting better and we’ve got a great campaign lined up,” he said.
Much of the Tourism Department’s presentation Tuesday was in the form of a series of videos, with team leaders taking questions and comments in between.
One speaker in the video said a Google study showed that people who planned vacations online spent as many as 40 hours on the task.
So, Arkansas’ marketing plan will attempt to simplify the planning and serve information in a way that will get the people engaged and make it easy to finish quickly.
The marketing strategy also proposes to provide those vacation planners with high-quality Web content that convinces them Arkansas is worth the trip.
A new wrinkle will be to focus on activities as destinations rather than places and provide clusters of activities for side trips to encourage visitors to get out and explore the state.
“People don’t travel to states,” Clark said. “Most people travel to a city or an area. It’s an activity that dictates where you’re looking to go.”
The Tourism Department plans to have ads tailored to each section of the state. For example, one ad theme for the Arkansas Ozark Mountain Country of Northwest Arkansas will be “Take Time to Make Timeless Memories.”
It will feature photos of Eureka Springs, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Fort Chaffee Barbershop Museum, Lake Fayetteville trails and The Passion Play.
And the Northwest Arkansas ads will be placed in magazines circulated in areas where its visitors are traveling from: Oklahoma, Kansas City and Springfield, Mo.
The marketing strategy will use the social-media sites more to reach the millions of people who are on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, TripAdvisor and Yelp to promote Arkansas as a vacation destination, Aristotle interactive technology strategist Morgan Long said.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 10/30/2013