If you're in downtown Seattle today, you may see two new billboards by the Alaska Travel Industry Association. They show a vanity Alaska license plate with the words "Alaska B4UDIE."

The striking yellow signs resulted from studies that showed many travelers list Alaska as a place they'd like to visit before they die.

The $150,000 campaign will put the billboards in Seattle, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, where they'll stay for a month.

"Alaska embodies the trip of a lifetime, so we're hoping to encourage potential travelers to make plans to visit the Last Frontier sooner rather than later," said Ron Peck, president of the Alaska Travel Industry Association (ATIA), which is erecting the billboards. The association markets Alaska for the state, which provides half of its budget.

The billboards will be at Olive Way and Howell Street, Second Avenue and Pine Street, and South 188th Street and Pacific Highway South.

Peck said tourism in Alaska is increasing. This year they estimate 1.8 million visitors, nearly 900,000 of them arriving by cruise ship. Most come in the summer.

Peck said his agency worked with GMA Research in Seattle to ask people why they travel. Researchers discovered, he said, that many people consider Alaska the trip of a lifetime, the place they'd like to go before they die.

From that grew the idea of the billboards with license plates.

Dave Worrell, a spokesman for ATIA, said on his travels he often tells the person next to him on an airplane that he works in the Alaska tourism industry. The reaction he often gets is, " 'Oh, Alaska, I've always wanted to go there.' So we decided this was a neat fit. It's been rolling around in the back of our minds for a long time."

The association also put up a Web site:

www.AlaskaB4UDIE.com.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com