The message is going out across a 200-mile radius: Shop. Play. Stay.

And do that in Ann Arbor, which is ready to fulfill winter getaway needs.

It’s part of a new, six-week advertising campaign planned by the Ann Arbor Convention and Visitors Bureau to boost tourism - and hotel occupancy - in Washtenaw County during traditionally slow winter months.

“We are (promoting) Ann Arbor as a place where you can recharge your spirit,” said Mary Kerr, president and CEO of the CVB.

The focus, she said, is on the unique aspects of the community. Downtown Ann Arbor, regional downtowns, local shops and restaurants all can fill the roster for a visitor seeking to spend a weekend “on vacation” but close to home.

This is the first time the CVB has focused on winter tourism by marketing Ann Arbor as a leisure destination, Kerr said.

The effort follows successes from the statewide “Pure Michigan” campaign and signals a partnership with the state to promote the county via TV commercials that will tout tourism in spring and summer.

It’s a $15,675 investment by the CVB for the creative components - including ads and online “landing page” - plus email and direct mail distribution, Kerr said.

But that investment could have a big payback for local hotels, which experience their slowest periods from November through March.

“We’ll be bringing in business when our hotels really need the business,” Kerr said.

The hotel industry has suffered through the economic downturn, and Michigan ranks 50th in the U.S. in hotel occupancy. However, Ann Arbor’s numbers are closer to national averages than the state’s average.

According to Smith Travel Research, Ann Arbor's hotel occupancy rate for September 2009 was 63.3%, nearly 2% down from 64.4% a year earlier - but 19% higher than the Michigan numbers.

The first four months of 2009 were particularly weak, Kerr said, influencing the year’s total occupancy rate.

Chuck Skelton, an advisor to the national hotel industry, said the local promotion could pay off.

And he added that anything that boosts occupancy over early 2009 levels would help the local market.

“The first quarter was an absolute disaster,” said Skelton, president of Hospitality Advisors Group of Ann Arbor.

Even later months improved, but not to the levels that Washtenaw County is used to. The recent University of Michigan v. Ohio State football game is an example: For the first time in Skelton’s memory, that weekend was not a local hotel sell-out.

Another example is the overall occupancy rate that the county expects.

“Ann Arbor will finish below 60 percent for the first time that I can remember,” Skelton said.

Looking ahead, Kerr is projecting flat hotel occupancy for 2010, though the rates charged for local hotel rooms are projected to fall. This year, that decrease is about 5.5 percent, Kerr said, with a 7 percent decrease forecast for 2010.

But beyond the lower costs for a visitor to book a room in Washtenaw County, none of that should be visible to people who choose to come to Ann Arbor for a getaway.

They won’t care that corporate travel is down 40 to 60 percent or that summer business was off up to 30 percent, according to Skelton’s numbers.

The campaign is simply encouraging people to travel “during that time of year when they normally wouldn’t take a vacation,” said Marianne Gosz of the VCB. “… They’ll get to walk in a pedestrian-friendly downtown, relax in a nice restaurant, go see a show.”

Paula Gardner is Business Director of AnnArbor.com. Contact her at (734) 623-2586 or by email.