Tourism

By Ray Hoyt, President, Tulsa Regional Tourism

GREG BOLLINGER Southern Hills Country Club hosted the 2021 Senior PGA Championship and will host the PGA Championship in May 2022. For decades, much of Oklahoma’s economic identity has resided within the energy and aviation industries. Today, thanks to attractions such as Route 66, big events at the BOK Center, the Gathering Place riverfront park, and major sporting events such as the USA BMX Grand Nationals and PGA golf tournaments, tourism is a significant economic driver for Tulsa and the entire state. As a matter of fact, tourism is now the third largest industry in Oklahoma, and the Tulsa region is a huge attraction for many. In 2020, 7.2 million people visited Tulsa and spent $845 million, generating a total economic impact of $1.2 billion, according to an annual study by Oxford Economics. Marketable visits — purely leisure trips rather than trips to visit friends or relatives — accounted for 3.2 million visits to our region. Local tourism supports more than 15,300 jobs in Tulsa, and the state and local taxes sustained by tourism offsets $590 in taxes for each household in the city. These numbers reflect the hard work of Tulsa Regional Tourism — the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s destination marketing organization — to attract visitors to our city. People are choosing to visit Tulsa in significantly greater numbers during the past decade. And while the COVID-19 pandemic impacted that momentum in 2021, we continue to sell the future of Tulsa as a major tourism destination. That’s been made easier by the increase of visit-worthy offerings within our region. For example, Buck Atom’s 21-foot space cowboy on Route 66 is rapidly becoming a must-see roadside attraction. The John Hope Franklin Memorial was named “the most important monument to visit in the U.S.” by National Geographic. The Outsiders House Museum celebrates the beloved literary classic by S.E. Hinton and the film by Francis Ford Coppola. The 66-acre, $465 million Gathering Place riverfront park continues to gain accolades, with USA Today having named it the best new attraction in the country. Travel experts Frommer’s named Tulsa as one of the best places to visit in the United States in

2022. In January, CNN named T-Town a Best Destination for 2022.

The cycle of economic success from the Tulsa region’s tourism industry is strong and growing stronger. Thanks to the hard work of Tulsa Regional Tourism staff, board members, volunteers and investors, we have gained distinction as a welcoming city for diverse events and visitors.

Housed at the Tulsa Regional Chamber, Tulsa Regional Tourism is an umbrella organization that includes Visit Tulsa, the leisure marketing leg; the Tulsa Convention and Visitors Bureau; the Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts and Culture (Tulsa FMAC), an accredited film commission; and the Tulsa Sports Commission, which markets Tulsa as a destination for amateur sporting events. Tulsa Regional Tourism assists in the community’s bidding for, and hosting of, signature events such as NCAA Division I men’s basketball, the Big 12 Wrestling Championship, USA BMX Grand Nationals, the PGA and Senior PGA Championships, the Arabian Horse Association’s U.S. Nationals, the Pinto Horse Association World Championship Show, the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals indoor car racing, the SeneGence International Evolve Seminar, and many more events and conferences. For fiscal year July 2020 to June 2021, the total economic impact of the conferences and events our city hosted was $227 million. More than 143,000 hotel room nights were booked along the way. Tulsa Regional Tourism recruited 62 new events to the region, and 97 events that had already been held here came back again. But the best news is we are continuing to add to our tourism portfolio as a region. Case in point: Tulsa hosted its first-ever fulldistance IRONMAN triathlon in 2021, making Tulsa the 42nd city in the world to host such an event. What’s even better, that Tulsa event also was the IRONMAN North American Championship. Hosting any IRONMAN event is extremely prestigious, but convening the world’s greatest triathletes to compete at the championship level affirms that Tulsa is truly a world-class sports destination. Attracting more than 3,000 triathletes and more than 10,000 spectators, this one event had an estimated economic impact of more than $14 million for our region. IRONMAN’s arrival in Tulsa validates what the community has known about itself for years: northeast Oklahoma is a destination for adventure sports. Beyond adventure activities, Tulsa also is gaining a reputation as a hub for creativity of all types, including music, film and the visual arts. To better support the growing creative community, Tulsa FMAC maintains a regional creativity database and promotes Tulsa’s assets at events like South by Southwest and the Sundance Film Festival. In fact, Tulsa was named one of Sundance’s 20 virtual hub partner communities for 2021.

Tulsa FMAC is also Oklahoma’s only accredited city film commission through the Association of Film Commissioners International, and that distinction is paying huge dividends. Tulsa FMAC supported 41 film productions in the past year alone, with more in the pipeline for 2022 and beyond, including major motion pictures and television.

Despite the challenges to tourism as a result of the pandemic, Tulsa’s tourism outlook remains strong, and there is every reason to believe it will grow even stronger in the years ahead.

Tulsa hosted its first IRONMAN North American Championship in 2021.

Within its first five years, City officials project USA BMX will attract over 100,000 visitors and generate more than 100 local, state and national events in the heart of downtown. The USA BMX Headquarters and the Hardesty National BMX Stadium open in early 2022.

The sport of BMX racing dates back to 1973. It was first sanctioned under the National Bicycle Association, “NBA.” The NBA was the first to organize multiple tracks, create rulebooks and began tracking the athletes in order to award athletes at the end of its season. The first national event was held in 1975 in Phoenix, Arizona. But, in true American form, there were others who felt they could do things better and improve on the NBA’s format. By 1976, a sanctioning war had begun for the sport.

The American Bicycle Association – “ABA” was formed and it held its first event in 1978 in Azusa, California. Eventually, there were additional sanctioning bodies, but the main two constantly in competition were between the NBA and the ABA. Eventually, in June 2011, the sport of BMX became one sanction. The two sanctioning bodies have united and both have joined under the USA BMX umbrella. Ever since, USA BMX has been headquartered in Gilbert, Arizona. However, in 2022, the headquarters is moving to Tulsa in a state-ofthe-art facility. This headquarters will oversee the more than 375 sanctioned tracks around the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico and its 70,000 members. USA BMX coordinates the national, regional, state and local scheduling for all of its tracks, as well as manages the U.S. Olympic BMX Trials in conjunction with the United States Olympic Committee and USA Cycling.

Philanthropy has always been something the USA BMX brand values deeply. Being the largest youth cycling organization in the U.S. and Canada, USA BMX recognizes its opportunity to deeply impact and inspire the next generation. The USA BMX Foundation, the nonprofit arm of USA BMX, provides STEM and STEAM educational resources for youth and teaching professionals as well as college scholarships for USA BMX members and track volunteers. In fact, BMX is the only Olympic sport with a fully integrated STE(A)M program which is now deployed in more than 300 schools nationwide and 225,000 students engaged. It also includes specific programming for at-risk youth, training them in the ins and outs of bicycle mechanics so they can graduate high school with the skillset to immediately get a job in the industry.

The new national headquarters in Tulsa also will host after-school clinics and coaching, weekly practices and racing on a local and regional level, an annual state championship race, two national championship series races annually, a vintage national championship and more.

No one knows what USA BMX will bring in the future, but one thing is evident: USA BMX is just getting started. Tulsa is extremely fortunate to have USA BMX call it home.