Tourism director: The touring vacation is back

Richard Davies was in Fort Smith on Friday (Feb. 4) to deliver what amounted to a cheerleading speech for the Fort Smith area and statewide tourism industry.

Davies, the director of the Arkansas Parks & Tourism Department, said tourism and business travel was up 4.5% in 2010. Speaking at the First Friday Breakfast held by the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, Davies said he believes people reemerged in 2010 from the recession blues.

“Quite honestly, I think Americans got tired of being recessed,” Davies said.

People and governments in the Fort Smith area should be proud of what they have done and are doing to promote tourism, Davies told the crowd. He specifically praised the effort to build a 25-foot tall statue of U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves in downtown Fort Smith. Reeves, the first black Marshal, began his career as a deputy U.S. Marshal during the term of U.S. District Judge Isaac Parker. Reeves served as a U.S. Marshal between 1875 and 1910.

“That probably will be an icon for Fort Smith, maybe an icon for Arkansas,” Davies said.

The effort has raised more than $100,000 toward the $300,000 goal to fund construction and maintenance of a large statue of Reeves in Pendergraft Park. The Bass Reeves Legacy Initiative hopes to have the statue complete and in place by September 2011.

Davies said the statue, the planned U.S. Marshals Museum in Fort Smith, the soon-to-open Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock and the numerous state and federal parks are part of a multi-billion dollar Arkansas business sector built around convincing people to come spend their vacation dollars in The Natural State.

He said about 40 million people live within driving distance of Arkansas, and emerging trends show that individuals and families like to drive to several spots during a vacation. And states, cities, organizations and tourism-related businesses need to work together to capture that travel.

“The old touring vacation is back,” Davies said. “And tourists could care less about borders. … They are going to see stuff.”

If that “stuff” includes group tours that travel to Crystal Bridges, the Marshals Museum and the Clinton Library, all the better, Davies said. And like the Clinton Library did, Davies says Crystal Bridges and the Marshals Museum will deliver “global media mentions” of Arkansas tourism destinations.

Those things help reach the people who never thought about coming to Arkansas on their vacation.

“Getting people to Arkansas the first time is the biggest challenge. Once here, they get it, and they come back,” Davies said.