The Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau (GPCVB) has raised its marketing efforts with its Seven Wonders Campaign.As part of its marketing promotions, the GPCVB forged cooperative advertising partnerships with the Arizona Office of Tourism (AOT) and seven major Phoenix-area resort properties to successfully produce several high- impact advertising programs in well-respected, high-circulation publications.

The GPCVB’s Seven Wonders Campaign promotes the seven partner resorts, and also the six niche markets of spa, outdoor adventure, dining, golf, shopping, as well as arts and culture—comprising the Seven Wonders of Greater Phoenix.

The GPCVB formed strategic partnerships with AOT, The Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa, the Phoenician, the Royal Palms Resort and Spa, The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa, the Fairmont Princess and the Wigwam Golf Resort & Spa.

Through this cooperative effort, the largest ever for the GPCVB, the partners purchased an 8-page color insertion in The New Yorker (November 28, 2005), Gourmet (December 2005), Conde Nast Traveler (January 2006), Vanity Fair (January, 2006) and Architectural Digest (January 2006).

“The current weather trends in the north and northeast sectors of the U.S., coupled with these magazines now being in homes and in stores, should provide an audience that is now quite receptive to a warm and welcome message from Phoenix,” said GPCVB President Steve Moore.

“We appreciate our partners (listed above) for making this happen. While the metro Phoenix hotel market is rebounding, we still have much work to do in the coming year and we cannot do this without AOT and our hotel-resort partners.”

The five publications above, in which the insertions run, have a combined readership of 22.5 million.

The attractiveness of Greater Phoenix’s spectacular resort properties—combined with the targeted readership’s penchant for travel—is expected to result in an extremely successful campaign.

All told, the GPCVB’s other cost-sharing marketing efforts will reach more than 100 million readers in 38 publications in 2006.

The powerful Seven Wonders Campaign also included an additional full-page ad, plus advertorial, in the October issues of Gourmet, Conde Nast Traveler and Architectural Digest. Due to the support of its seven resort partners, the GPCVB was able to leverage its marketing dollars almost 2-to-1 to nearly $1.5 million for this campaign alone.

All 8-page insertions also include art from renowned illustrator Jon Cannell, whose work has been used prominently by Starbucks.

The GPCVB furthered its messaging by creating unique splash pages, listed below, for each magazine insertion. The insertions and splash pages for The New Yorker ( http://www.visitphoenix.com/nyker ), Conde Nast Traveler ( http://www.visitphoenix.com/cnt ), and Vanity Fair ( http://www.visitphoenix.com/vanity ) focus on Greater Phoenix spas. For Architectural Digest ( http://www.visitphoenix.com/arch ), the insertions and splash pages highlight arts and culture; and for Gourmet ( http://www.visitphoenix.com/gourmet ), the focus is on Greater Phoenix dining and shopping.

Among the campaign’s impressive added-value components are client events/media promotions in key markets such as New York and Chicago.

More than 13 million people visit Greater Phoenix each year, contributing more than $6 billion directly to the area’s economy.
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