Last week the Travel Industry Association of America honored Travel Michigan with a Mercury Award for the Best State Tourism Radio Advertising for its Pure Michigan campaign. Last year the Pure Michigan campaign won the top TIA award for Best State Tourism Advertising Campaign in addition to receiving a Mercury Award for the Best State Tourism Television Advertising.

The Pure Michigan campaign continues to drive record volumes to Michigan's official travel Web site, michigan.org, which maintains the title as the No. 1 state tourism Web site.

 According to the July 2008 rankings of Hitwise United States -- an international company which tracks traffic to major Web sites -- michigan.org had more traffic than any other state tourism Web site, capturing 9.33 percent of the market share. This is the third month in a row that michigan.org has had more volume than any other state tourism Web Site.

The Mercury Awards is a program created by the National Council of State Tourism Directors to recognize its members for excellence and creative accomplishment in state tourism marketing and promotion, and to inspire the continued development of truly imaginative and exciting destination marketing and promotion programs.

The Birmingham office of McCann Erickson developed the strategy and creative for the Pure Michigan campaign. Pure Michigan commercials can be viewed/listened to online at michigan.org/travelads.