SALT LAKE CITY -- When state tourism officials last spring unveiled the state's new advertising slogan "Utah: Life Elevated," local critics had a field day making fun of it.

But few people are laughing now. The state tourism office is projecting that spending by tourists will have increased 7.7 percent this year to $5.873 billion. The tax money generated from tourism-related spending on things like hotels, restaurants and rental cars will save the average household $494 this year -- up $30 from a year ago.

"There's a bit of vindication," Leigh von der Esch, director of the Utah Office of Tourism, said Friday.

While local media made jabs at the slogan, tourism officials remained confident.

"The anecdotal information we get from out-of-state visitors said, 'That's exactly how I feel when I'm here,"' von der Esch said.

She said many people didn't realize that the slogan is only part of a broader campaign, which targets affluent adventure travelers. She said the slogan goes hand-in-hand with visuals of Utah's sweeping landscapes, just as Nike's "Just Do It" slogan is accompanied by inspiring imagery.

Lawmakers took a leap of faith when they increased the state advertising budget from $900,000 to $10 million a few years ago. Tourism promoters promised that not only would they recoup the money, they would also stake future budgets on their ability to grow tax revenue. The state would decrease its guaranteed portion of funding by $1 million a year over the course of a decade. Anything on top of that had to be earned.

By all accounts, the plan is working. This year, the tourism office is slated to receive $13 million in funding -- $6 million of that earned by meeting performance benchmarks.

To earn funding beyond what the tourism office was granted in a prior year, lawmakers set a goal of increasing revenue from 21 different tourism-related taxes by 3 percent.

This year, the state is on its way toward quadrupling that.

"It's working the way we designed it," said Sen. Scott Jenkins, R-Plain City. "When we originally started there were a lot of naysayers. ... But this is what makes me say, hey, it's worth it."

Typically, tourism experts say it takes about two years for an advertising campaign to begin getting results. Utah's quick start could be attributed in part to the fact that the state had nowhere to go but up.

An image survey revealed that most tourists had no idea that Utah's "iconic" images were in Utah. They were more likely to pick Colorado or Arizona when shown mountains and red rock formations. That even happened with a picture of Delicate Arch -- which is on the Utah's license plates.

Research conducted for the state showed that out of the 79 percent of domestic tourists who said they wanted to visit the West, only 5 percent mentioned wanting to come to Utah.

"The nice thing about it is that some just say the economy is doing well. Well, the economy is not quite doing that well. Our numbers are higher than just being the economy doing that well. It truly is an example of our marketing working and our advertising working," von der Esch said.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D4.