For The Love Of Mesa: Photo Sharing Site

VISIT MESA LAUNCHES LOCAL PHOTO SHARING SITE TO CELEBRATE CITY Community-driven committee leads effort “For the Love of Mesa” in advance of National Travel & Tourism Week www.ForTheLOVEofMesa.com

MESA, Ariz. – Today, Visit Mesa launched its third grassroots campaign aimed at lifting spirits of Mesa citizens. The tourism marketing organization is calling on Mesa residents to share photos of what they love about the city and will use the submitted photos in a video of their new original song they are preparing to distribute during National Travel & Tourism Week next month.

The photo sharing campaign is being driven by more than a dozen Mesa community activists, civic leaders and active citizens who are helping guide the process. They collectively titled the effort, For the Love of Mesa, recognizing the need for unity and support during these incredible times. Members represent all of Mesa’s six council districts and will be helping drum up interest and urge their audiences to join in this display of support for the city.

Visit Mesa has redirected much of its tourism marketing efforts to help support the local community and has established numerous resource sites online at VisitMesa.com. This latest effort is to share the lens of the Mesa resident and what they love about the city. The song’s lyrics evoke the essence of Mesa calling out the many key brand-defining attributes of the city and the ways in which to escape, be free, and be on the way to Mesa. Performed by Mesa’s own Kyle Collins, the Dobson High graduate and singer/songwriter worked with Los Angeles-based producer Tim Yokley to pen yet another original anthem for Visit Mesa.

“We want to keep the music playing,” said Visit Mesa President & CEO Marc Garcia. “Our hospitality community has never experienced anything like this and quite frankly, we are fractured by what took place in such a short time. When we realigned our messaging to communicate to those much closer to home, we wound up quickly building a local fanbase here in Mesa. We knew we needed to ignite this community and call upon our loudest cheerleaders to get us through this. I’m excited to see this play out over the next month because this is all for them. An outreach effort built by our locals, for our locals.”

The epic photo sharing campaign is open now at http://www.ForTheLoveofMesa.com. Visit Mesa is also awarding one winner each week with a custom State 48 t-shirt to encourage participation and is asking citizens to share this campaign on their personal social feeds. In addition to being featured in the new video, the slideshow of images selected by the steering committee will also be on display online in early May. Visit Mesa is also using the new effort to educate on the power of travel with links to the annual visitor industry studies that illustrate the impacts of direct visitor spending in our city and how much visitors mean business to Mesa.

National Travel and Tourism Week (NTTW), the annual celebration of the contributions and accomplishments of the U.S. travel industry, will spotlight resilience and hope in the face of the coronavirus pandemic with this year's theme: The Spirit of Travel. Celebrated annually the first full week in May, NTTW was created by Congress in 1983 to underscore the economic power of travel in the U.S. The 37th NTTW (May 3-9) arrives at an opportune moment to unite the industry, celebrate its indomitable spirit and elevate the role it will play in America's economic and employment recovery. With more than 5.9 million travelrelated
jobs projected to be lost by the end of April and travel-related economic output expected to drop $910 billion this year amidst the pandemic, navigating the worst of the crisis and kick-starting the industry's
eventual recovery are crucial. U.S. Travel is leading the advocacy effort to ensure that subsequent rounds of legislative relief are structured to provide further support specifically to travel-related businesses and
organizations, and their employees.

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CONTACT:
Michelle Streeter, Visit Mesa, Sr. Vice President, Communications & Partner Relations
480-682-3638
[email protected]