Utah's push to get tourists to visit the state last spring and summer apparently paid off — big.

Research discussed at Friday's Utah Board of Tourism Development meeting indicates that nearly $4 million in advertising yielded an $851 million economic impact because of a higher number of spring and summer travelers, and state and local tax revenue generated by the visitors' spending grew $67.7 million.

Both are improvements over the 2006 spring and summer campaign, in which $2.4 million was spent on ads that had a $167.7 million economic impact and tax-revenue increases of $13.3 million.

The 2006 campaign had a return on investment of $5.47 for each tax dollar spent on the ads. In 2007, the return on investment was $17.14, according to statistics released by Denise Miller, vice president of Strategic Marketing & Research Inc., which tracks ad effectiveness for the state.

"I think it's definitely the case where you have a really good product that there was very little awareness of, and you put some money at it and it worked," Miller told the board.

The figures were derived from surveys of leisure travelers and are meant to reflect how many more visitors came to Utah because of seeing the ads. Both campaigns featured targeted ads in Denver and Los Angeles, plus some national ads in 2007.

Miller noted that an "image" study before any ads ran indicated many out-of-staters had no awareness of Utah at all, or in some cases they associated images of Utah with locations in other states. The impact of the ads is strong, she said — so strong that that initial results may be difficult to replicate.

"I think they now have people telling that story, and it's making an impact. I think we'll see that impact not be as strong as we go forward. We'll inch up on these things, rather than have them stay strong," she said.

Miller also revealed stats about the nearly $2 million winter campaign. Initial results indicate that people in Los Angeles and Denver are more apt than before to want to get more information about Utah tourism possibilities. Actual travel resulting from the campaign will be measured later.

"You have more awareness than competitive states, the message is working well, and it's having a positive impact," Miller said.

Tourism officials will use the figures as they request a $15 million appropriation from the Legislature for the 2008-09 fiscal year marketing and advertising activities.

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