New tourism brand designed to promote city

Holland Hayden, city communications manager, presented a new unified tourism brand and website for the community at Tuesday's city board meeting.

The new brand identity -- Discover Siloam Springs -- includes a logo, tag lines and website. It is the result of a collaboration between the city, the Chamber of Commerce and Main Street Siloam Springs, with help from Blogs for Brands, Hayden said.

Hayden explained the three entities have been working separately toward tourism, but wanted to unify their efforts to be more efficient and give residents and tourists one place to find out what to do, where to go and where to eat in Siloam Springs.

The new brand features a modified version of the city logo, with more earthy colors and a rounded shape, Hayden said. The tagline is "Small Town Charm, Great Outdoor Adventure." The accompanying website, which has the web addresses discoversiloam.com or discoversiloamsprings.com, has pages with information about upcoming events, attractions, restaurants and stores.

Hayden said the website is currently operational, but is still a work in progress. She estimated that it will reach its completed form by sometime in June.

She said the website has a twofold purpose.

"We want tourists of course to come in and this be the authority on what to do, where to go, where to stay in Siloam Springs," Hayden said. "But for residents, we want to prevent residents from seeking entertainment options outside Siloam Springs because they just don't know what's going on."

Hayden said representatives from the city, Chamber and Main Street are working with the Chamber's tourism committee to curate events, businesses and organizations to be included on the website.

Don Clark, the city's community development director, explained the existing city logo acts as an official seal but doesn't act as a marketing tool. Siloam Springs has an experience economy and the new brand attempts to capture the essence of the space, he said.

"Our goal is to preserve our quality of life while growing our economy," Clark said. "We want to do that while being true to our sense of DNA. ... That basically means we are going to fail at being anybody else but Siloam Springs, so lets promote who we are here and what we have to the best of our ability."