Summer Proves Kind For Fort Smith Tourism

The summer months proved to be strong for Fort Smith, with events such as the state’s H.O.G. Rally the last weekend of August bringing in around 4,000 attendees over a three-day weekend.

Claude Legris, advertising and promotions director of the Fort Smith Visitors Bureau & Convention Center, said the event brought in an estimated $970,000 over the weekend to the city. And that’s a conservative estimate, he said.

There were 6,258 event guest rooms booked in the River Valley for the H.O.G. Rally, Legris said. In Fort Smith, there were 4,915 rooms booked, 853 in Van Buren, 197 in Alma and 293 in Roland, Okla.

Legris hadn’t received August’s hotel tax collections as of early September, but did say overall, tourism is up in the area. And gasoline prices haven’t stopped people from traveling.

“[Gasoline prices] haven’t had a negative affect on us,” Legris said. “Gasoline prices have a double edge sword because it keeps people close to home.”

And the city could expect a larger boost to the tourism industry if it snags the U.S. Marshal’s Museum. During the week of Nov. 13, a 10-person committee from Washington, D.C., will visit the city for three days to help them decide between Fort Smith and Staunton, Va.

Even though tourists are still making their way to Fort Smith, not many are doing it through the air. Passenger totals (click here to see a PDF chart) for the Fort Smith Regional Airport are still down from where they were last year, and according to director Kent Penney, it will stay that way through the end of the year. The decline has been due to decreased seating on airlines, according to an airport press release.

Passenger totals over the summer months of May through July this year were down 8.1 percent compared to last year.