Wayne Woods, the younger of two brothers who invented modern messaging to lure visitors in Arkansas, left the state with a $10 billion tourism industry when he died March 10.
He was 77.
“We can’t take credit for everything, not some big things like the Clinton Library in Little Rock and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville,” Wayne’s brother, Shelby Woods, told Arkansas Business a few years ago. “But we were able to get a dedicated fund for marketing and later state incentives for tourism businesses to come here. We have a product that visitors love, and it’s very affordable.”
Wayne Woods, whose partnerships with Shelby and others held Arkansas’ state tourism contracts for well over 50 years, retired as CEO of CJRW in 2015.
But he made his bones in the early 1970s, when there was hardly a dirt road in Arkansas he hadn’t traveled.
Arkansas’ streams, lakes and mountains had attracted anglers, hikers and hunters since Americans started taking vacations. But before the Woods brothers came along, the state didn’t do much to advertise itself. Surrounding states outspent Arkansas by as much as 20 to 1 on marketing.
So the brothers joined a dozen regional tourism associations in pushing the state to offer matching money for tourism promotion. In 1971, they got it, and by 1975, the state match was $2 for every local dollar.
In 1989, Gov. Bill Clinton signed Act 38, establishing a 2% tax on hotel stays, cabin and boat rentals, camping fees and admissions to attractions. It now generates more than $25 million a year, all devoted to advertising Arkansas.
The tax set the stage for Woods Brothers’ 1990 merger with Cranford Johnson Robinson Associates, at the time the largest ad firm merger ever in Arkansas. CJRA was a big firm with some $26 million a year in capitalized billings; Woods Brothers had about $11 million in tourism business at the time, and was poised to bring in more.
Wayne Woods joined Shelby to form their agency after graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1971. “Little Rock ad agencies didn’t want to go up to Mountain Home [a three-hour drive in those days] to service $10,000 worth of business,” Shelby Woods recalled in 2017. “But our firm got operators together for cooperative marketing, and we could go up there and service $100,000 worth of business.”
Mike Mills, who built the Buffalo Outdoor Center in Ponca into a tourist destination starting in 1976, recalled his first impression. “I had no money whatsoever when a guy named Wayne Woods walked in and tried to sell me an ad. I didn’t have $20, much less $200, but he said, ‘Take out the ad and pay me when you get the cash.’ We became lifelong friends, and the Woodses taught me a lot about marketing.”
Mills became the state’s tourism director in 1982. In 2023, he served less than six months as Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage & Tourism.
Mills was inducted into the Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame in 2018. Wayne Woods joined him there in 2020.
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