Each year, one community in Arkansas, big or small, plays host to the Governor’s Conference on Tourism. The conference helps shine a light on statewide tourism attractions and trends from other nationwide tourism organizations and brings Arkansas industry professionals together to network, share ideas, and call attention to all that the Natural State has to offer.
Dogpatch Debut
By the mid-1970s, several of Arkansas’ tourism leaders, including Shelby Woods and the late Jim Gaston, had attended tourism conferences in South Carolina and Missouri and thought it was high time to do something similar in Arkansas. Wanting to bring attention to Arkansas’s tourism industry and bring better state funding to the table, they decided to call it the Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism.
Conference coordinators hoped Governor David Pryor would attend if his office was affiliated. The first Governor’s Conference was held in 1975 at the now abandoned Dogpatch USA theme park in Newton County.
“Pryor did participate, giving the keynote address,” says Kristine Puckett, Arkansas tourism development manager and coordinator of the Governor’s Conference. “But it was years before the state’s tourism promotion budget got the infusion sought by those early advocates.”
The Governor’s Conference on Tourism has grown immensely in its 42 years. It has been held in cities across the state, including Little Rock, Bentonville, Eureka Springs, Fairfield Bay, Fort Smith, Hot Springs, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, West Memphis and more.
The 2018 event is slated to return to West Memphis on March 11-13.
Honors and Know-how
In addition to bolstering the tourism promotion budget, the Governor’s Conference brings together industry professionals from across the state to network, learn best practices, and collaborate on ways to increase the number of visitors to The Natural State.
“Our major goal is to provide the industry with tools to help them succeed,” Puckett says. “We aim to provide concrete action items that attendees can take home with them to immediately implement. Past session topics have included festival planning, how to promote local communities and attractions and social media. Our objective is to incorporate a mix of state, national and international speakers to provide a range of perspectives and insights.”
Each year, the programming is tailored to the host city and the conference’s theme. A conference of this scale requires plenty of planning, typically six months to a year in advance.
“Everything is cyclical,” Puckett says. “The more abstract aspects — theme, location, speakers, sponsors — are being developed and worked on 6-12 months out. The closer to conference time we get, the more we dive into details and more specific information. Then, of course, the couple of weeks leading up the main event are just one whirlwind of nonstop activity.”
The Governor’s Conference has a few annual staples. Live and silent auctions offset expenses and fund scholarships for students in collegiate hospitality and tourism programs, helping the state invest in future tourism leaders.
The Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame induction luncheon celebrates legends in the field and recognizes their lifetime efforts to increase tourism. Keynote speakers — U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger J. Dow was the headliner last year — and local tourism leaders provide a mix of national and statewide voices and the Henry Awards, traditionally attended by the governor, recognize industry professionals from the smallest cities to the largest who have excelled in areas like media support, community development, heritage, festivals and events and volunteer service.
Planning to Plan
Puckett admits the conference is a big undertaking that requires careful planning and help from others. Her job includes collecting bids from potential host cities and working with the city, conference facilities, and hotel properties to plan and produce the event. Then she works on securing speakers, sponsors and audio/visual production crews.
All the while Puckett is promoting the conference, planning and scheduling education sessions, the Henry Awards program, hall of fame inductions, meals, entertainment and more. Puckett also manages the conference budget and coordinates staff and volunteer assignments for the three-day event.
“Plan, plan and plan some more, then plan that none of those plans will work and be prepared to act on the fly,” she says. “You can’t do it alone, and you shouldn’t try. Involve as many people as you can.”
Henri the Host
The Henry Awards ceremony honoring the year’s top tourism professionals began at the seventh Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism in 1981. The awards are named for Italian explorer Henri de Tonti, who historians consider to be one of the first “Arkansas Travelers.”
“The Italian adventurer was a trusted friend and lieutenant of the French explorer Sieur de La Salle,” says conference coordinator Kristine Puckett. “After La Salle granted him extensive land and trading concessions in the lower Mississippi River Valley, Henri de Tonti sent several men in 1686 to build a trading post near the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers.
“This ‘Poste de Arkansea,’ or Arkansas Post, became the first permanent settlement in the lower Mississippi River region and the first center of Arkansas hospitality for the people who passed that way.”
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