MARCH 19, 2008. America's most popular state tourism Web site, michigan.org , has unveiled a new look and new features.
The new site, launched this week by Travel Michigan, a division of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the state of Michigan's official agency for the promotion of tourism, was designed to reflect the award-winning Pure Michigan brand, as well as include videos of Michigan travel destinations, plus nearly one thousand new photographs to help individuals and families make travel decisions.
Easy to navigate and search for specific information on places to go, things to do and places to stay, the site also offers one click sign up opportunities for the free 2008 Michigan Travel Ideas publication and to register for free monthly travel eNewsletter. Web visitors also will see link 'clouds' highlighting further information based on their search. In addition, the latest travel news is now available via RSS.
Share Your Pure Michigan Experiences already has more than 60 personal stories contributed by Michigan travelers. Individuals can click on the Experiences box on any page of the site to read items and/or submit their own travel adventure. One of the most popular shared stories is Moose on the Loose, a tale about a 600 pound moose visiting downtown Iron Mountain.
"It's always good to refresh promotional tools, and that's what we did over the last several months with michigan.org . The new site offers an updated navigation system to discover Pure Michigan travel information with ease," said Travel Michigan Vice President George Zimmermann. "We believe the new look and features will continue to attract record numbers of potential Michigan travelers."
Deemed the most popular state tourism Web site in the country in 2007 by Hitwise, an online measurement company, michigan.org received the largest percentage of U.S. visits than any other state tourism Web site last year. Among a custom category of the 50 U.S. state tourism Web sites, michigan.org averaged 8.68 percent of market share of U.S. visits for 2007.
