Outdoor Recreation Fuels Arkansas Tourism Boom Post-Pandemic

Gina Germberling, CEO of Little Rock’s tourism bureau, said the industry rebounded quickly from the 2020 pandemic. (Jason Burt)

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the Arkansas economy hard when it landed in 2020, and few industries felt its effects more than tourism.

Fortunately for the cities that rely on tourism dollars, the pandemic’s havoc turned out to be short-lived. As the pandemic retreated from daily consciousness, tourism rebounded — quicker in some cities than others — and officials said lessons learned during the crisis are paying long-term dividends.

“You know, in tourism, we like to forget that COVID even happened,” joked Gina Gemberling, the CEO of the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Gemberling is sincere, though, when she says that she and her staff at the LRCVB used the down time during the pandemic to organize. Gemberling said 2020 had started strong for Little Rock but the pandemic caused 297 groups to cancel their plans to hold events in the capital.

“The tourism industry is 24/7; we’re going all the time,” Gemberling said. “So COVID, although it was a really, really hard time for our industry, we did take that time and really looked at where our needs were.

“We recognized that the tourism industry changed during COVID, and we wanted to put a plan together for the tourism industry of Little Rock on where we wanted to see where tourism needs to be in 10 years. So that was a big step for our organization and for the whole city of Little Rock, honestly, for us to take on that endeavor.”

Little Rock received $17.4 million in advertising and promotion taxes in 2019 and saw that drop to $13.5 million during the pandemic year of 2020. Revenue quickly recovered, hitting $17 million in 2021; it has steadily increased to $21.6 million in 2024.

“During COVID, the only tourism was the outdoors, and coming out of COVID, that outdoors market became even stronger and more prominent,” Gemberling said. “During that time, we added an outdoor recreation section to our website, knowing that that was where we were going to continue.

“Little Rock is pretty fortunate that we have this great metropolitan area, and you can jump on a trail and be in nature and the outdoors and jump on the Arkansas River Trail right downtown here. That is one of the things that we have continued to do or increase our marketing efforts on.”

‘Still Coming Back’

Steve Arrison has overseen the Hot Springs tourism bureau, Visit Hot Springs, for nearly three decades. The pandemic dropped the city’s A&P revenue from $6.96 million in 2019 to $6.18 million in 2020, but Arrison said Hot Springs saw a turnaround start even before the year ended.

Arrison said the city’s small size but proximity to large cities such as Dallas and Memphis helped sell Hot Springs as a small, uncrowded place where COVID was less of a concern. Arrison said Hot Springs’ tax revenue increased the last three months of 2020 compared with the same months of 2019.

“COVID was a terrible thing, but people discovered us those last three months of 2020,” Arrison said. “The good thing is, a lot of them were first-time visitors, and they’re still coming back.

“I think a lot of people discovered, not just Hot Springs, [but] the Arkansas product. Those people were trying to get away from those large groups of people in metropolitan areas. So they came to Arkansas, discovered our product, and they liked it, and they’ve continued to come back in the years following.”

Arrison said Hot Springs didn’t exactly rebrand itself, but it opened up new options, such as free concerts through its Bridge Street LIVE programming.

“We did a lot of things that people could go to, but they wouldn’t have to be standing jammed in next to somebody,” Arrison said. “I think our marketing department did a very good job with social media letting people know that, hey, you can come to Hot Springs; you can stroll the promenade on the National Park; you can walk our scenic downtown; you’re not going to be jammed in. Or you can maybe take your mask off because you’re not gonna be next to people.”

‘We Leveled Up’

One advantage Arkansas had, and still has, going for it is a robust outdoor recreation market, and tourist officials wisely began to promote the outdoors during the pandemic.

That has proved to be a foundational change for the better for many cities. One such city is Bentonville, which calls itself the Mountain Bike Capital of the World, and heavily promotes its trail system, as well as its arts attractions such as Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

The ability to market the outdoors came in handy because Bentonville had relied heavily on the business traveler, unsurprising since it is the home to Walmart Inc. and a host of vendor companies that do business with Walmart. Kalene Griffith, CEO of Visit Bentonville, said her organization has seen its focus on outdoor recreation and the arts pay off.

“Losing that business traveler, we had the outdoors and the arts that kept us successful,” Griffith said. “We evaluated: Do you want to put all your eggs in one basket? We had to look at it from a different practice and put the outdoors and arts at the top of our list, and have those campaigns to tell our story, to make sure people knew we were open.

“We leveled up on the outdoors and the arts, and I think we have kept that initiative going since COVID. It has benefited us, and also added to our business travel.”

Jennifer Walker, the interim CEO of Experience Fayetteville, said her organization also committed to promoting outdoor recreation during the pandemic and has continued in the years since. Walker, the organization’s vice president of finance, was named interim CEO after Molly Rawn was elected mayor of Fayetteville.

“We completely pivoted towards outdoor recreation, and that really helped us get through 2021 especially,” Walker said. “People were starting to venture out, but they weren’t really comfortable going back inside yet. So focusing on outdoor recreation really helped us. There was a huge boom in outdoor recreation and cycling, specifically, during those years. We have hung onto that.”