Visit Las Cruces unveils new slogan

“I can’t wait until everyone hears this,” Assistant City Manager Ikani Taumoepeau said Wednesday evening, May 31, just before Visit Las Cruces (VLC) unveiled its new slogan: “The Real New Mexico.”

“You’re a part of this tagline,” Taumoepeau told attendees at the unveiling party at Amador Live. “We’ve got to live up to it.”

The “new look and bold tagline” unveiled by the city’s official marketing organization “represents who we are,” said Christina Ballew of NMCO Creative Studio, the Las Cruces company that worked with VLC to create the new brand, along with the visitors’ guide, merchandise and advertising campaign that go with it.

“Southern New Mexico doesn’t get the recognition it deserves,” Ballew said. The rebranding will help “bring recognition to our part of the state.”

“We’re embracing our city and region’s strengths by creating a brand with the surrounding southern New Mexico communities in mind,” VLC Marketing Director Lorena Lozano said in a news release. “It opens itself up to future collaborations in a region that often feels overlooked.”

The New Mexico Department of Tourism estimates visitor spending in Doña Ana County totaled more than $407 million in 2020, with the hospitality industry making up nearly 10 percent of the county’s workforce, VLC said.

Attendees at the unveiling party included City Manager Ifo Pili, Mayor Pro Tempore Kassandra Gandara, City Councilors Yvonne Flores and Johana Bencomo, Doña Ana County Commissioner Christopher Schaljo-Hernandez, VLC Board Member Russell Hernandez, Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Debbi Moore, VLC Executive Director Rochelle Miller-Hernandez and filmmaker Ross Marks.

 For more information, visit VLC’s new website: www.visitlascruces.com.