Arkansas Tour Guide Goes Interactive

By Jill M. Rohrbach, Ark. Dept. of Parks and Tourism

01-07-2008

LITTLE ROCK – To give potential Arkansas visitors instant access to vacation information, the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism is making the popular Arkansas Tour Guide available in an electronic version on Arkansas.com, the state’s official tourism site. The interactive guide is a replica of the printed version distributed in the free Vacation Planning Kit, Welcome Centers and selected visitors’ centers across the state, and complements the information on Arkansas.com.

“The Interactive Arkansas Tour Guide will be a helpful tool for Internet users who are potential visitors to the state,” said Joe David Rice, tourism director for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. “We’ll send a link to the guide to individuals who subscribe to our e-newsletters as well as those who ask via e-mail for our free Vacation Planning Kit, so they’ll instantly receive a Web-based tool to begin planning their trips to Arkansas.

“A lot of people use the Internet to make their vacation plans,” Rice continued, “and by further refining the state’s Web-based outreach with the Interactive Arkansas Tour Guide, we hope to make Arkansas an easy choice for vacationers.”

The Interactive Arkansas Tour Guide (IATG) is viewable through any Web browser at Arkansas.com and etourguide.arkansas.com, and pages may be printed individually through Adobe Reader. Pages are turned on the screen with the cursor by clicking and holding any corner or flipped more quickly by clicking and releasing on the corners.

Pages that contain printed text leading readers to Arkansas.com and other Arkansas tourism sites allow users to click on the copy and be linked to the corresponding Web site.

Viewers also have the option to bookmark favorite pages for easy reference and send the link for the IATG to friends via the Web.

“The Interactive Arkansas Tour Guide is another example of the state’s travel and tourism industry using innovative ideas and technology to make our information available to a greater number of potential visitors,” Rice said, “and helping bring regular Arkansas travelers back year after year.”