Steve Arrison

Steve Arrison has been a huge part of making Hot Springs the state’s prime tourist destination again.

As executive director of the Hot Springs Advertising & Promotion Commission, he oversees the largest convention facility in Arkansas.

With the recently opened 120,000-SF Summit Arena that offers seating for 6,000 for athletic events, concerts or exhibits, the Hot Springs Civic & Convention Center now has 360,000 SF and the ability to hold several events at the same time.

Under his management, the convention center’s revenue has increased about 3 percent a year during a time when tourism and most convention bureaus saw a decline after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Arrison has directed the growth of the convention center for the past five and a half years, after leaving Pine Bluff, where he had been successful as well.

The secret of his success, he said, is a quote from hockey great Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

With that philosophy, Arrison has made all 42 employees at the convention center into a real selling team.

“We take a lot of shots,” he said. “We ask for business that we have no business asking for.”

By doing so he’s landed some gems, such as PBS favorite “Antiques Roadshow” and, earlier this month, a live broadcast of the “Prairie Home Companion” radio show.

Arrison, 48, started out in the hotel business. He was manager of the Holiday Inn at Pine Bluff when he was approached to head the Pine Bluff Convention Center. He credits his understanding of the hotel and restaurant business with his success in the convention center field.

But he also admits to hard work and an eye for innovative and even audacious new approaches to bringing more visitors to Hot Springs. Keeping the Hot Springs Convention Center productive is the constant challenge before him, but he recognizes it’s more than just having the space for a convention and feels blessed to have the lakes, the restored shops of downtown Hot Springs, Oaklawn Park, and restaurants and hotel rooms aplenty.

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