OKC tourism is setting records with new, expanding attractions

Oklahoma City’s tourism market, devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has not just recovered but is now exceeding historic trends with even greater growth likely with the opening of new attractions.

A recently completed study by Tourism Economics reports visitors to Oklahoma City in 2022 generated a record $4.3 billion economic impact from an estimated 23.2 million visitors.

“We’ve had various indicators that our visitor economy had surpassed pre-pandemic levels, but this data gives us a deeper understanding of the power of tourism in Oklahoma City,” said Zac Craig, Visit OKC president. “We expect tourism’s economic impact to continue climbing as Visit OKC elevates our destination marketing across national and international audiences and partners add new attractions throughout the city.”

Oklahoma City is drawing thousands with destinations that didn’t exist a quarter century ago, including RiverSport, the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, First Americans Museum, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and the Museum of Osteology.

Millions were spent improving destinations, including the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds, the Myriad Botanical Gardens and Bricktown.

Visit OKC reports that money is coming back to the local economy with direct spending last year by visitors totaling $2.6 billion. That spending is credited with supporting 33,888 jobs and generation of $343 million in state and local tax revenues in 2022.

Where are visitors to Oklahoma coming from?

Chad Huntington, owner of the Water Taxis in Bricktown, was among those who saw plummeting business in 2020 but saw recovery begin in 2021.

“Like everyone else, we experienced a very difficult drop-off,” Huntington said. “But even in 2021, we noticed already a significant bounce-back. The composition of our customer changed. We saw a pronounced uptick in regional tourism. People in north Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Kansas were finding us much more than in the past.”

Huntington said he saw unprecedented visitor traffic from north Texas.

“That’s a massive market,” Huntington said. “We noticed our north Texas area codes associated with bookings were surging. People were still staying closer to home and not willing to fly yet.”

The regional traffic helped Huntington continue operating while national and international business that collapsed during the pandemic was slower to recover.

“Now that we’re in full-on recovery mode, we’re also seeing a strong surge in long distance international traffic that had disappeared,” Huntington said. “Yet we’re still seeing strong regional traffic. I think there was, for a long time, a strong reluctance in north Texas realizing Oklahoma City was a destination. North Texas discovered Oklahoma City in a very strong way, and it continues to be a major market for us.”

Huntington reports he saw a record revenue for his operation last year and agrees the bounce-back is more than just a recovery. Jeff Penner, executive director of the Greater Oklahoma City Metro Hotel Association, said the local lodging industry has seen a recovery matching the one reported by Huntington.

Penner said one of the barometers of recovery is the per diem rate paid by federal agencies, which recently was raised from $104 to $110 a night in Oklahoma City.

“Whenever the fed government raises per diem rate that means they understand the market is healthy enough that they have to raise their rate to get rooms,” Penner said.

Maureen Heffernan, director of the Myriad Gardens Foundation, said the recent reopening of the Crystal Bridge Botanical Garden has seen an uptick in attendance and a revenue increase of more than $150,000.

Visitor traffic to the overall gardens itself is difficult to measure, she said, because it is free to the public. But new programming, including a tulip festival launched earlier this year, is credited with attracting thousands of visitors.

“We get a lot of people visiting family from outside the city and state,” Heffernan said. “They visit the gardens as a family — some are driving Route 66, others are traveling through the city. They look at the Crystal Bridge when they are passing through downtown and they want to go in and see what is there.”

Numbers also are difficult to come by for Scissortail Park. Heffernan said an estimated 30,000 people, many from across the country and around the world, came to the park to participate in the annual Oklahoma City National Memorial Marathon. She said the recent Summer of Soul concert series attracted about 15,000.

Tourism promotion continuing to grow

To better promote the city at such large-scale events, Visit OKC this week launched a mobile visitor center where staffers in a converted Ford Transit Van will be equipped with maps, brochures and other information while also cross-promoting events and other attractions.

Huntington, meanwhile, sees the Chickasaw Nation, already a partner in promoting the city, taking on an even bigger marketing role with the opening of their $400 million OKANA resort along the Oklahoma River.

The OKANA resort being built next to the First Americans Museum will feature an 11-story, 400-room hotel, conference center, water park, dining, shopping and eventually an aquarium.

Huntington expects OKANA will attract a national and international spotlight the city at the level currently seen with the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.

“OKANA is going to have a remarkable impact on the Oklahoma City market simply because of the amount of additional marketing it will surely bring to the destination,” Huntington said. “The Chickasaw Nation has made it abundantly clear they are a force to be reckoned with when it comes to tourism and the visitor economy, and not just with marketing but executing some exceptional destination level developments.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Texans are visiting OKC more than ever since COVID. Here's why