Bentonville’s economic impact from events doubled from 2023

Visit Bentonville looks to build upon a record 2024 that generated $41 million in economic impact from events. That’s twice the amount of the previous record of about $19 million in 2023.

Kalene Griffith, CEO and president of Visit Bentonville, said the organization was involved with 310 events in 2024 contributing to the new record.

Some of the events attributed to the record number were the Life Time Big Sugar Classic cycling events in October, which “kept people in town for multiple days,” she said. Bentonville Bike Fest in May also had a significant economic impact, attracting about 15,000 people over more than two days. Other key events include the Bentonville Film Festival and Walmart shareholders meeting.

She said while the organization doesn’t lead the shareholders meeting, it factored in the number of visitors who stayed overnight in Bentonville. She said with the Walton’s 5 & 10 store being closed, most of the events happened in Fayetteville.

Asked how the organization might exceed last year’s record, Griffith said it’s doing more “hunting than farming” and is looking at what events and organizations it would like to recruit here.

She said medical tourism will be a “key audience that we look at. We’re going to continue to grow the 80-some sporting events that we had. We really pride ourselves on exceeding expectations so that sporting teams want to come back to our community. … We’re going to continue with the cycling events and hopefully add to that 30 to 35 cycling events coming into the area.” Meetings, weddings and bus tours will remain focus areas.

With the expansion of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the reopening of the five-and-dime store, she expects the numbers to continue growing. She said new events and developments will bring new visitors, but she also expects returning visitors and events to increase.

Griffith said the Life Time cycling events continue to grow annually from nearly 1,000 to about 2,000 participants. She said the aim is for such events to return annually, expand and add to the economic impact.

In addition to the cycling events, Bentonville hosts about 30 baseball and softball tournaments, attracting between 60 and 80 teams.

“Those are great revenue generators for us,” she said. “If you have 60 to 80 teams, you know you’re going to have 10 to 12 kids per team with their families. If we do the younger ages, grandma and grandpa come, and aunts and uncles travel.”

She said the Bentonville Half Marathon is another event that continues to grow. It’s hosted by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department and has more than 3,000 registered participants. She expects the Walmart shareholders meeting this year to “knock it out of the park” with the new Home Office.

Earlier this year, she said 500 people from across the state attended the Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Bentonville, during which Gov. Sarah Sanders signed the law allowing for lift-access downhill mountain bike parks. The lift access is like a ski lift for mountain bikes.

OZ Trails, led by brothers Steuart and Tom Walton, recently announced a lift-access project near Bella Vista. Another bike project with lift access is The Trails at Mena, near Queen Wilhelmina State Park in western Arkansas.

More recently, Visit Bentonville added multiple staff to its sales team, led by Wesley Oliver. The organization has 15 staff, including five in sales, three in communications and two in finance. Other roles include community development, business facilities and operations, and two full-time and three part-time visitor experiences staff.

Griffith said its sales goals include increasing the number of events between 5% and 10% and adding to the economic impact. She said the quality and variety of events are also important. There are many events in spring and fall, and the organization is looking to fill the months with fewer events, such as January, February, August and November.

Visit Bentonville plans to hire an events services coordinator in the second quarter of this year to support the sales team, which sells and services the events. The coordinator will help support the events and ensure they have quality services. Also this year, the communications team plans to add a project and asset coordinator, who will handle the project and digital asset management.