How Arizona Used Social Sunshine to Lift Up Winter-Weary New Yorkers and Chicagoans

The Set Up

It’s the early days of April as we put this edition of PRNEWS to bed and in several parts of the U.S. snow is in the forecast. Does that get you blue? Tired even? Good. That’s part of the genesis behind Arizona Office of Tourism’s (AOT) attempt to have the state associated with warm weather, with the aim of getting more people to visit the country’s sunniest spot.

Yes, in the blazing hot competition known as the winter tourism market, Arizona bases its claim as the country’s sunshine capital on what it says is meteorological fact: The state averages 313 days of Sun each year. Sorry, Florida. Still, Florida officially is known as The Sunshine State, so AOT has some work to do to break through. And then there’s competition from myriad warm destinations outside U.S.