The busy time of the year for leisure travel and tourism is fast-approaching, but don't look for Ohio to have as many media ads luring potential travelers as other states in the region.

The Ohio Division of Travel and Tourism's annual budget is the smallest of any state in the region, often by a wide margin.

Last year Michigan spent $32 million on promoting tourism, compared to the $6.9 million spent by Ohio, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

Pennsylvania spent $29 million, Illinois spent $50 million and West Virginia spent $8 million.

"Historically we've been below our regional average. Typically we've been outspent by states like Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania. Indiana is the only one that spends about the same as us," said Amir Eylon, Ohio's director of tourism. "About $16 million to $17 million is the average for states around us."

Michigan, especially, was studied for its highly successful, and expensive, ad campaign last year, given that the state is in dire financial straits.

In fact most observers expect Michigan's tourism budget to be slashed this year because of the state's budget woes.

"It's never fun to see one of our competitors outspend us, but I look at it as exciting. We can look at it and see what they're doing to and try to do it here in Ohio," said Matthew MacLaren, executive vice president of the Ohio Hotel and Lodging Association and also a member of the Ohio Tourism Roundtable, a group that represents interested parties in the state's tourism industry.

Regardless, Michigan's "Pure Michigan" campaign won two U.S. Travel Association awards and other states are studying that campaign to use similar strategies for their own states.

Ohio tourism leaders are also looking at a funding model used by Missouri where the tourism promotion budget is tied to the amount of tax dollars generated by tourism.

"We're looking at the Missouri performance-based model and the proposed Michigan budget," said MacLaren. "Our tourism division has trailed the regional average, the national average, consistently."

He said that one of the factors that can be used to persuade Gov. Ted Strickland and state legislators to increase the tourism budget is the return-on-investment seen by the industry in Ohio.

For every dollar spent by the division of tourism approximately $12 dollars in tax revenues, mostly sales tax, is collected.

"With our return-on-investment we've made an argument that there's good reason to increase the budget," said MacLaren. "It's also one of the quickest returns-on-investment. You do the ad buy in the spring and a few months later you get the tax revenues."

Eylon said that, for example, the return-on-investment in 2008 would have been about $400 million.

MacLaren said that doesn't even include indirect revenue from visitors who spend money on gasoline or even groceries when they're visiting Ohio.

Eylon said most of the $6.9 million budget is spent on items such as advertising, marketing, public relations, publications and operational costs.

The spring and summer typically are the busiest times of the year for tourism campaigns as travelers are planning their vacations or weekend getaways, he said.

The Ohio tourism division, for instance, plans to spend about $2 million of its budget on the summer campaign.

Last year Michigan spent $10 million on its national summer travel campaign alone.

Eylon said that most visitors to Ohio come from a range of 300 to 500 miles away.

"Our competition is our neighboring states," he said.

Tourism leaders say they hope state leaders will increase the tourism division's budget once the economy and state budget situations improve, which has occurred in the past.

Overall the Ohio tourism industry is expecting a solid summer, with travel expected to slightly increase this year, though most travelers are still looking to save money when they hit the road.

"One of the most-visited sections of our Web site is our special offers and packages section," said Eylon. "Leisure travel has been decent. Where it's been hurt is business travel."