State’s Official Tourism Website Goes Mobile

ATLANTA, September 27, 2011 —Georgia Tourism, a division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, relaunched a new and improved ExploreGeorgia.org mobile website on August 15. The new mobile site is interactive, engaging and provides real-time trip planning information. The content is pulled directly from the state's official tourism website.
'In order for Georgia to remain competitive in the current marketplace – we believed it was time to upgrade and expand our mobile presence,' said Kevin Langston, deputy commissioner for Tourism for the Georgia Department of Economic Development.  'We wanted to give visitors the ExploreGeorgia.org experience in the palm of their hands, so they can easily and quickly find events, attractions, accommodations, special offers and more on the go.'

The newly relaunched travel platform assists travelers in finding destinations, places to stay, events, special offers, local services, maps and navigation tools from their mobile device. Additional features of the site include a brand new look, access to the state's social media assets, trip planning tools, images, streaming video and an enhanced database to help users quickly plan their trip. Georgia's tourism entities also have exclusive access to purchase targeted banner ads for their destination via the mobile platform.

More than 73.6 million Americans now access information via a smart phone.

'The number of searches in the travel category via a mobile device is up 1,200 percent this year,' according to Rob Torres, Google's managing director of advertising and marketing for the North American travel sector.

According to ThinkMobile, 'Google saw a 400 percent increase in the number of searches made on a mobile device in the first quarter, and that number is expected to grow by 26 times in the next four years.' Google statistics show that businesses at the local level benefit greatly from mobile device searches with 61 percent calling the business and 59 percent visiting it after they find it via their mobile device.

The site was developed in conjunction with ITI Marketing, a full service marketing, consulting and technology company based in Brunswick, Georgia.

The Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) is the state's sales and marketing arm, the lead agency for attracting new business investment, encouraging the expansion of existing industry and small businesses, locating new markets for Georgia products, attracting tourists to Georgia, and promoting the state as a destination for arts events and location for film, music and digital entertainment projects, as well as planning and mobilizing state resources for economic development.
www.georgia.org