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Pinellas Tourism Taps Google

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By TED JACKOVICS

tjackovi@tampatrib.com

Published: January 15, 2009

CLEARWATER - Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater, which markets tourism for Pinellas County, is hedging its bets for hits among prospective Super Bowl visitors on Google's search engine.

The tourism group said Wednesday it will invest an amount less than $15,000 to buy 102 "key words," three of which, for example, would be "Tampa Super Bowl," to place its link in a conspicuous position on Google's search results pages when someone Googles "Tampa Super Bowl" or other expected search terms.

The link at visitstpete clearwater.com will direct people to a microsite with local attraction, hotel, restaurant and other information.

The visitors bureau will begin the program Monday, after the two teams to play in the Super Bowl are decided this weekend. Either teams from Philadelphia or Phoenix, and Baltimore or Pittsburgh, will come to Tampa, along with an estimated 100,000 fans, 30,000 of whom won't get tickets to the game.

In addition, the Pinellas visitors group will occupy a recently-vacated space at International Plaza to push the county's attractions to Super Bowl visitors. International Plaza draws about 16 million people annually, and the up-scale shopping plaza is expected to be a key spot for football visitors to congregate, said D.T. Minich, director of Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater.

Hillsborough County's tourism bureau, Tampa Bay & Co. has placed links to hotel accommodations and visitors information at visittampabay .com.

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