Spa City reaps results from magazine article
Posted on Sunday, March 30, 2008
HOT SPRINGS — The Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau continues to reap the benefits of its 2007 media marketing program, with the April 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler.
The magazine includes a feature story on Hot Springs National Park, as well as an article that lists Lookout Point Lakeside Inn, 104 Lookout Circle, as one of 150 hotels across the United States, Canada, Mexico and Caribbean region with a “sense of place.”
“Both of these articles will have a very positive effect on our community and on the business of Lookout Point Lakeside Inn and Hot Springs National Park,” said Steve Arrison, CEO of the Convention and Visitors Bureau in a March memo to the Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission.
Both articles were written by journalists who visited in March 2007 as part of a $ 100, 000 contract with Geiger & Associates Public Relations of Tallahassee, Fla. The public relations group brought more than 30 travel writers to Hot Springs over two visits in 2007, first in March and again in September.
With travel writer visits, Arrison said, one to three years can pass before seeing the results, especially in magazines, which collect their material several months in advance.
The 2007 visits yielded earlier results, with Hot Springs featured in the New York Daily News, in addition to various magazines.
After the March visit, early reports estimated the coverage received totaled $ 145, 309. 48 and reached 1, 192, 637 consumers.
An advertisement in National Geographic Traveler would cost $ 69, 000, the Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates.
The public relations value, Arrison said, is much larger than that.
“National Geographic Traveler is a very difficult magazine to get coverage in so we are very pleased with these results,” he said in the memo.
Hot Springs recently welcomed its first crop of travel writers for 2008, with 18 journalists visiting from March 16-20.
A group of journalists will visit again in September.
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