The Ozark Gateway Tourist Council Banquet was held May 4 in Horseshoe Bend, recognizing businesses and individuals across the eight-county region.
The banquet opened with one item of business, the appointment of a new board member. Cally Shore was nominated and accepted the position.
Awards followed with Executive Director Cathy Drew and President Crystal Crow presenting.
Crown Point RV Resort was selected as the member of the year for their growth and the addition of the largest Aqua Park in the state with Pat Behrndt accepting.
The President’s Award was presented to Bobby and Amy Finster for their development of the Sandtown Shuffle.
“To me it’s amazing how our counties very specifically are really amazing in their ingenuity and crating things out of nothing for tourism in our area. Because we don’t have the big cities or universities. This award goes to a couple that has recently created something for a very small town. This award goes to Bobby and Amy Finster for the sand town shuffle,” Crow said.
It is a bike race they have created and are creating excitement and hopefully we’ll get more races in our region because of it.”
The Tom Biggs Award, given to an individual recognized for outstanding service to tourism, was given to Hazelle Whited of Sharp County.
“She has worked really hard. She is very on fire about the solar eclipse and everything going on in the northern part of our region. We are really proud of everything she is doing,” Drew said.
Plaques were also presented to the Ozark Gateway Partners in Tourism: CherryRoad Media, Bank of Cave City
Citizens Bank, First Community Bank, Future Fuel, North Arkansas Electric Cooperative and White River Now.
Ms. Arkansas State Fair Queen, Karsyn-Faith Thompson spoke to those present and following a brief introduction, Thompson said she was thankful for the opportunity to speak and to see the role the eight-county region plays in promoting tourism.
“I would love to welcome the opportunity to appear at any festivals or events you may have come up in the next few months,” Thompson said.
Vice President Adam Davis then introduced the speaker for the evening, Arkansas Tourism Director Travis Napper.
“I met Travis a few years ago, he had trial by fire because he came in during the Covid years. If you think starting a new job is rough, starting a new job during covid when everything is banned is a tough start. He jumped right in and in my opinion one of the biggest champions for tourism the state has ever seen,” Davis said
Napper said he began his position in April of 2020 but when he initially agreed to accept the job, he didn’t know what Covid was.
“During that time, they’d sent us home, but I was able to get out and explore,” Napper said. “I want to give you an economic snapshot for where we are with tourism around the state.”
Napper showed a map of the United States with shades of color depicting tourism spending dollars across the nation.
“The darker the blue the better. That means we’re up in our tourism spending numbers and we are in the darker blue, we’re not the darkest blue but this is comparing March 2023 to March 2019 which for the state and many other places was the record year pre-pandemic. The chart across the top, we are the blue line, and the US is the red line, we have charted above the rest in our recovery the entire time. Travel spending up 13.5 percent, air passenger up 4.3 and demand was up 8.8 percent, but probably the biggest surprise is our leisure and hospitality jobs are up 4.7 percent and that is something that had lagged behind.
Napper said the latest numbers for 2021 showed the recovered or exceeded 2019 numbers in every area except jobs and employment.
“We’ve returned to that $8 billion dollar travel spend that affects us all across the state and also gives all our residents about $750 each. We’re primarily funded through a two percent tourism tax. We’ve had 23 consecutive record months with that and that is a true testament to everyone in the state,” Napper said.
Napper said some new activities across the state included the release of the Arkansas Waterfalls Guide, the kickoff of the centennial year for Arkansas State Parks and the launch of Club 52, the opening of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts and the upcoming opening of the United States Marshals Museum and the National Cold War Museum.
Napper also briefly touched on the upcoming solar eclipse and made note Hardy is currently projected to be in 100 percent of the path of totality.
“Anywhere In the state, even if you’re not at 100 percent, you are at least at 85 percent in the path of totality,” Napper said. “It is incredible, and we’ve seen lots and lots of bookings in the state, almost all of our state parks are booked up especially in the path of totality. Hopefully people will still be flooding into your communities. We’ve been talking about this since 2019. Kim Williams has made the round, and this is a great gift we’ve been given by nature to be one of the best places to view this and we want to take advantage of that and help our communities take advantage of that.”
He also introduced a new marketing campaign with the slogan “Be near everything, but feel far away”
“We talked a lot during Covid and focused a lot on the outdoors and we’re trying to tie it back in to our urban experiences. That I something that we have ,and that is the proximity with our urban areas and outdoor experiences and that is something we’re going to try to focus on. In the natural state you can escape to a setting that allows you to feel far away while still being close to food, arts and culture..”
Lauren is a an award-winning journalist who decided after 10 years of newspaper experience to venture out. Hallmark Times was born.
