The New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism has launched a new campaign the promote the Garden state as a perfect vacation destination this summer.

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Executive Director Grace Hanlon says her Division is aggressively going after New Yorkers with ads in taxis, but in addition "we have our television commercial running up in Canada, in order draw more visitors down to the Jersey shore, especially the Cape May Area, and we're also promoting through billboards and television commercials and radio ads in Pennsylvania, Washington DC, and New York as well."

She says "we consider a tourist somebody that drives 50 miles from their home to their destination - so that means somebody from Short Hills going to Cape May - they're a tourist."

Hanlon adds part of the reason why they're running ads in New York cabs is to attract visitors from foreign countries to Jersey, who may be going to a play or concert in the city.

"Honestly we don't have the budget to market through all of Europe right now - it's just not realistic" she says, "we know visitors are going to be in the cabs as they're going into New York City, from La Guardia, JFK or Newark, they're a captive audience and they don't know how to turn it off yet…so no matter what, they're going to hear that really positive, upbeat come visit New Jersey ad- which - I just think it's fabulous."

Hanlon also points out "we have a really exciting thing going on, on Facebook - where you spin to win - if you like us on Facebook you get to spin a wheel and you're part of a contest to win a great prize in New Jersey….we're reminding folks about the advantages of New Jersey being less than a tank away - from so many destinations around New Jersey…there's really not a need to travel further and spend more money on gas - put more money into your vacation, not your gas tank."

She also says "we are attracting more visitors to the website - visit-nj-dot-org.  In fact, we're up 51 percent in web traffic from this time last year."

 

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