Although the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted many industries across the world, tourism in Hot Springs is "incredible right now," Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison told Hot Springs National Park Rotary Club members last week.
Arrison told The Sentinel-Record in February he predicted the Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission would see a record year in 2022. He repeated that prediction to the Rotarians last Wednesday during their weekly meeting at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hot Springs, noting the first four months of the year have shown a 28% increase in hospitality tax collections compared to last year.
"I think we take it for granted," Arrison said. "I know we take it for granted. People are paying good money to come here and do things that we just do every day."
From 2020 to 2021, the ad commission saw about a 30% increase in hospitality tax collections, he said. The total revenue from 2020 was $6,181,700.08 and 2021's was $8,041,374.84.
However, the ad commission did not go unaffected by the pandemic. There was an 11.02% decrease in hospitality tax collections from 2019 to 2020, with 2019's total revenue at $6,964,897.41.
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"We had COVID," Arrison said. In 2020, "our convention center business just absolutely tanked. We had no business; 2021, people were still scared. Now in 2022, it's back full-bore."
He explained some of the reasons he thought might explain the increases and credited part of the success over the last few years to "the people," noting some restaurants are closed three days a week and some hotels are not able to rent all of the rooms because they can't get cleaned quickly enough.
"And we're still doing the numbers we're doing," he said.
"People are still coming. People still want to come to Hot Springs.
"We're very fortunate that Oaklawn invested (about) $113 million. What an incredible addition. And that surely has helped us, but what really helped the first part of this year was the races starting early."
When it comes to the "record year" the city's tourism industry has seen so far, Arrison attributed it to the city, county and national park's teamwork in making sure visitors have a good experience.
"It's everybody working together," Arrison said. "I think that's been a lot of our success to date for sure."
He said the location of the city is also a contributing factor in the ad commission's success, noting even though gas prices are increasing, "people are going to take vacations.
"You look at our numbers at the visitor's center downtown and it's crazy," he said. "States that we've never seen show up before, we're getting them more and more.
"We really just need to stay friendly and keep working together so this will be a record year and next year will be a record year and it'll go on and on."
Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison gives the rotarians of Hot Springs National Park an update on tourism on Wednesday. – Photo by Donald Cross of The Sentinel-Record