New Mexico tourism campaign bound for San Francisco
Mar. 27—The New Mexico Tourism Department will launch a $15 million advertising campaign in San Francisco with a special appropriation approved by the Legislature, pending budget approval by the governor.
The Tourism Department has similar advertising campaigns in place with the so-called fly markets: Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Houston, Dallas and Austin, Texas.
These fly markets — places from which people commonly fly to New Mexico — account for about 21.5% of New Mexico's tourism, department spokesman Cody Johnson said.
Phoenix and Dallas make up half of those fly-market visits, tourism statistics show.
A Los Angeles advertising campaign was added last spring, but the other cities have been in place for years. Los Angeles and San Francisco are the newest additions because advertising costs are higher there than the other fly markets.
The San Francisco marketing will be predominantly digital, television or at airports.
"By bringing New Mexico True into the San Francisco market, we have the opportunity to take New Mexico's potential for economic development to a whole new level," Tourism Secretary Jen Paul Schroer said in a news release. "Entering the San Francisco market has been a goal of the Tourism Department for years, and now is the right time to seize on this opportunity."
