2024 Eclipse Offers Historic Tourism Opportunity, Arkansas Cities Told

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A total solar eclipse will leave much of Arkansas in darkness on April 8, 2024, but it’s going to be a sunny day for communities that take advantage of the historic influx of visitors that’s expected.

That’s what former Little Rock mayor and former state tourism director Jim Dailey told the Rotary Club of Morrilton last week, urging the city to make broad preparations for thousands of visitors, whether it’s sprucing up downtown streets, expanding bike trails and lodging, or creating a tourist-friendly overlay district. The eclipse may be two years away, he said, but communities shouldn’t wait to begin planning for what he described as a once-in-a-lifetime tourism and business opportunity.

“You’ve got to start now,” Dailey said. “That’s what it really comes down to.”

Dailey, who now works in a government relations role for Kelley Commercial Partners of Little Rock, isn’t the only one urging Arkansas cities not to underestimate the potential economic impact of the eclipse. The Division of Arkansas Tourism has launched a newsletter and countdown timer for the eclipse, hosted webinars, and sent officials to cities in the path of the eclipse to help them get ready.

Kim Williams, who is coordinating the department’s eclipse outreach and planning, told Texarkana leaders this month to expect visitation “unlike anything Arkansas has seen before.” Many visitors will be traveling to Arkansas for the first time. Whether they have an experience that makes them want to return could affect the state’s tourism industry for years. 

Arkansas Tourism has been working with Brook Kaufman, the former head of tourism in Casper, Wyoming, a city of about 58,000 that was a prime viewing destination for the 2017 eclipse. She’s been touring Arkansas to share lessons learned from the experience. 

Casper is the seat of Natrona County, where over a five-day period about 21,000 stargazers, photographers and scientists filled rooms, restaurants and roadways. Among the visitors was a national group of amateur astronomers, which reserved every room of Casper’s biggest hotel five years in advance.

After the eclipse was over, visitors had spent $7.5 million in the county and left behind about $500,000 in sales taxes. Statewide, nearly 192,000 people visited and spent $63.5 million.

“People don’t believe that people will travel for this,” Kaufman told community leaders in De Queen. “I’m here to tell you, I was in that camp as well, and they do travel.”

Kaufman estimated that Arkansas’ tourism haul will likely be in the hundreds of millions. The state has several things going for it that Wyoming doesn’t, such as a central location. The 2024 eclipse’s zone of totality will stretch 123 miles, double the size of the 60-mile swath that moved through Wyoming. About two-thirds of Arkansas will be in the viewing area, including larger cities like Hot Springs, Little Rock, Conway and Jonesboro.

Not only will the zone of totality be wider, but the eclipse will last about twice as long as it did in 2017. Some parts of Arkansas will be in the dark for more than 4 minutes. 

Only two total eclipses have been recorded in Arkansas history. One happened in 1834, when Arkansas was still a U.S. territory, and the other was in 1918. The next total eclipse in the U.S. — which will again cover much of Arkansas — isn’t until 2045.

“You have a real opportunity to generate something that you’ve never done before here,” Kaufman said. “And I promise you — in Wyoming, it was the largest tourism event that we will ever see in my lifetime, and I would venture to say that for many of you who live in Arkansas, it will be the same.”

Kaufman has recommended multi-day events to hedge against the possibility of poor weather on eclipse day.

Different places are taking different approaches to the eclipse, and some are farther along with their plans than others. In Mena, zipline tour company The Blue has scheduled eight days of concerts, camping and other activities spread out over 120 acres on a historic farm. The event features food, vendors and guest speakers including astronomer P. Clay Sherrod. Tent camping passes start at $386, while passes for RV campers start at $586. The venue includes an amphitheater with a capacity of just over 22,000.

Another multi-day event featuring educational seminars and outdoor festivals is being planned in Sevier County, which is billing itself as “home to the longest duration of totality in the state of Arkansas.” Hot Springs tourism officials are promoting the city online as “one of the most ideal places in the world” for the eclipse. Smaller places like Clinton are playing up their rural appeal.

“Clinton’s picturesque skyline will frame your celestial view with rolling hills and open fields, without the urban obstacles or light pollution of a cityscape,” the city’s website says.

More: View an interactive map of the eclipse path.

Morrilton on April 8 held an event downtown marking two years until the eclipse. Officials spoke with residents about what to expect, sold T-shirts and signed up people to help in different areas of planning. The city’s Rotary Club hosted Dailey a little more than a week later. He urged them to continue reaching out to the community and to “really make them feel a part of it.”

Kaufman, speaking in De Queen, also stressed the importance of collaboration. She recommended bringing hotels together to discuss their plans, talking to banks about keeping ATMs filled, and making sure restaurants know they might need extra food.

Kaufman said no single government entity in Natrona County wanted to run the eclipse effort, but ultimately it took involvement from them all. Organizers set up a nonprofit to coordinate their efforts, raise money and limit legal risk to the agencies. They held monthly meetings with the state parks and wildlife departments, local hospitals, emergency management and county health officials, and the economic development office.

The effort ended up costing about $250,000 over 16 months, with the money going toward an eclipse guide, staffing, communications and marketing. There were other expenses for trash cleanup, utilities, entertainment, parking and security.

“If you think you’re just going to sell apple pie on your street corner and watch people drive by,” she said, “you’re wrong.”

Despite their planning, there were a number of things during the 2017 eclipse that didn’t work out the way Casper hoped. Nightly hotel rates in the city skyrocketed from around $90 to a high of $1,300, with many hotels requiring a five-night minimum at $750 per night.

Visitors paid those rates, Kaufman said, but they weren’t happy about it.

“There was a little bit of gouging,” she said. 

While hotels raked in tourist money, eclipse planners left some cash on the table. Kaufman said they could’ve done more national marketing for the area as an eclipse destination. They also underestimated demand for T-shirts, special eclipse glasses and other merchandise. Their vendor sold out of products, leaving them with about $25,000 in sales, an amount they think they could’ve tripled. 

Staffers were not prepared to handle a deluge in questions from travelers about where to stay, what to eat and how to get there in the months leading up to the eclipse. Kaufman said they received 7,800 phone calls, 10,000 emails and countless messages on social media. Workers spent 460 hours responding. 

There were also communications request from the media, sometimes about strange things that organizers weren’t expecting they’d have to address, like rumors of a mass suicide during the eclipse.

But the biggest headache came after the eclipse. Thousands of visitors left town at the same time, causing gridlock. The backup extended to Interstate 25, turning a four-hour drive from Casper to Denver into a 10-hour ordeal. The Wyoming Department of Transportation estimated that overall traffic increased by more than 536,000 vehicles.

Some visitors ended up sleeping in their cars along the highway. Kaufman said that hopefully Arkansas visitors will stay an extra night to avoid the same problem.