The Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism has won the silver award in the category of “Destination Social Media or Marketing Campaign” in the 2016 North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA) Awards Competition. The award comes in recognition of the department’s Parkansas Vacation Giveaway.

The NATJA awards honor the “best of the best” in travel journalism, photography and destination marketing that cover all aspects of the travel industry worldwide. NATJA is the second largest travel media association in North America.

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Arkansas’s Parkansas campaign employed humorous videos and social media posts to highlight many of Arkansas’s 52 state parks, 7 National Park System sites, and numerous municipal recreation areas via a “park personality” quiz and a park vacation grand prize giveaway. The campaign drew more than 67,000 views to the Parkansas landing page on Arkansas.com, and the giveaway received over 21,000 unique registrants.

Parkansas was loosely based on a campaign called “Barkansas,” an annual campaign begun in 2015 that promotes dog-friendly travel and vacation ideas in the state. That campaign won NATJA’s gold award in the same category and also led to the department being named a grand prize winner. Both campaigns were created in collaboration with interactive agency Aristotle, Inc.

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To learn more about the Parkansas campaign, watch the videos and take the quiz, visit www.Arkansas.com/parkansas.