It's bigger and better than ever!

The brand new Amarillo Visitor Guide from the Amarillo Convention & Visitor Council has hit the streets with a brand new look, a more appealing design and more content than ever before.

"Amarillo's visitor offerings continue to grow. Each year there is something new. So we have added four new pages and reorganized and redesigned this brochure," Jerry Holt, Vice President of the Amarillo Convention & Visitor Council, says. "It is especially timely to receive the new guide this month, as we head into our busy visitation season."

This guide is the Amarillo CVC's most important brochure. It is distributed through the Amarillo Visitor Information Center and the entire network of eleven Texas Travel Information Centers across the state. The guide is also mailed to thousands of people who contact the Amarillo CVC by phone, by mail or by e-mail each year. This year, the CVC had 180,000 copies of the new Visitor Guide printed.

New content includes listings for new hotel properties and for attractions like the Kwahadi-Kiva Indian Performance Center, the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts, and the Amarillo Dusters.

The new guide is also re-organized thematically, with spreads featuring Western & Outdoor activities; Entertainment & Shopping activities; Arts & Cultural activities; Points of Interest, Historic Sites, and Sports and Facilities.

Wrapped around the 28-page guide is a new cover featuring a bold photograph of "Great Western Tradition," a life-size bronze sculpture found outside the American Quarter Horse Heritage Center & Museum. The sculptor is Doug Israelsen of Midvale, Utah and the sculpture was dedicated in honor of Israelson's late wife on June 9, 2003

"The sculpture embodies all that is Amarillo, from our ranching heritage, which remains so important to us today, to the fine arts. We are pleased that the Amarillo CVC used this bold Western image on the city's official visitor guide," Bill Brewer, Executive Vice President of the American Quarter Horse Association, says.

"I am delighted to have the new guide, it's our best yet," Jutta Matalka, Amarillo CVC Director of Tourism, says. "It reflects, in a classic way, who we are and what we offer to an educated potential visitor. I think it is quite possible that this new guide could become a ‘keeper' for a lot of our visitors."

The new guide was unveiled during a special second birthday party for the Amarillo Visitor Information Center. Since its opening on April 1, 2003, over 18,000 visitors have stopped at the VIC (an average of more than 750 a month). They have been from all 50 states (NM, CA and CO are the most popular) as well as 30 different countries (Germany, UK and Canada are the most popular).

The guide was designed by Terry Pedigo of G&P Associates and printed by Cenveo-Trafton.

Visit the Amarillo CVC web site at www.visitamarillotx.com