Bentonville Tourism Officials Prepping for Culinary Bike Rides

In Bentonville, the culinary and cycling scenes have been growing in tandem with one another in the past few years, and when the two started merging in unexpected ways, tourism officials began to see an opportunity.

“It’s something that’s happening,” said Blair Cromwell, vice president of communications for the Bentonville Convention & Visitors Bureau. “People are coming to the community, and they’re wanting to do cycling and of course they have to eat, so they’re also having a culinary experience.”

“They’re two very big parts of our tourism market,” Cromwell added. “To marry the two together seems like a good fit. So we’re going to start packaging and promoting them as one.”

Culinary bike travel is a big business, both nationally and internationally. But whether it’s a tapas-centric trip in Spain, “beercyling” in Belgium or peddling through wine country in California, the demographic most on board with the trips are Baby Boomers, and that’s precisely where Bentonville tourism officials plan to focus their energies, Cromwell said. 

The tours are still very much in the research and development phase, but the vision that is taking shape is of a more “hub and spoke” type of tour whereby downtown Bentonville acts as a home base for visitors, who might stay at one of the area’s bed and breakfasts, such as the Laughlin House Bed and Breakfast or the Victoria Bed and Breakfast, or the handful of rentals-by-owners, such as the Downtown Bentonville Cottages.

From there, scheduled excursions — possibly guided — could be planned to eateries and breweries throughout Northwest Arkansas and even as far out as Eureka Springs.

And as new venues open in Bentonville and across the region, even more possibilities will crop up. For example, Cromwell said when the new facility for Brightwater, the newly expanded culinary program at Northwest Arkansas Community College, opens, visitors might stop by for a cooking class.