WASHINGTON, DC -- As millions of Americans search for deals and discounts to build their summer travel plans, the U.S. Travel Association – together with all 50 state tourism offices and more than 100 convention and visitors bureaus – today launched www.DiscoverAmerica.com, the Official Travel and Tourism Website of the United States. This one-stop travel planning source features special deals and offers to help U.S. residents save time and money and get on the road this summer.
“This should be the first stop for anyone planning leisure travel today. We’ve brought together a wealth of information and made it easy for travelers to find great destinations, activities and deals,” said Roger Dow, President and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. “It houses official content from all the states and the largest destinations and offers some great tools to help you plan where to go and what to do.”
The site’s 7,000 pages feature official content on all 50 states, the five U.S. territories, more than 100 cities and regional destinations, and more than 3,000 popular trip activities. It will continually evolve with the addition of new destination and attraction profiles. DiscoverAmerica.com compiles the most-trusted and official sources in travel, from state tourism offices and convention and visitors bureaus to agencies such as the National Park Service and Scenic Byways. Other reliable brands in travel information such as American Express, Fodor’s, Google Maps and Weather.com are also represented.
Beyond the destination overviews, www.DiscoverAmerica.com features an Activity Finder (in the “Activities” tab) loaded with trip activities in 24 categories that can be sorted by user interest. It further allows users to search activities by time of year or by nine different geographic regions. The “Places” tab features an Interactive Map where users may plot the approximate driving distances between two locales; just click and drag the map’s points to determine the mileage between any two places on the U.S. map.
DiscoverAmerica.com also hosts a community section of authentic anecdotes and trip photos from fellow travelers on the “Stories” tab.
“We worked closely with our travel industry partners to produce the greatest online user experience for U.S. resident travelers,” said Adam Vance, U.S. Travel’s senior vice president of marketing and product development. “The site is loaded with choice and provides thousands of links to connect users to more, detailed information from destinations and travel suppliers.”
Though no federal funds were used to develop the domestic site, the new U.S.-focused www.DiscoverAmerica.com joins six Discover America-branded sites that were born from a cooperative agreement awarded in 2007 by the U.S. Department of Commerce to the U.S. Travel Association to build and market official travel planning websites targeting the five leading inbound markets to the United States (Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany).
Previously the Travel Industry Association, the U.S. Travel Association is the national, non-profit organization representing all components of the $740 billion travel industry. U.S. Travel’s mission is to promote and facilitate increased travel to and within the United States. U.S. Travel is proud to be a partner in travel with American Express. For more information, visit
www.ustravel.org.
