TAHLEQUAH – With the torrential rains early in the season, E.coli reports from Grand River Dam Authority, and general lack of information on river conditions, tourism is down for river businesses.
At the Tourism Council meeting Aug. 21, Austin Spears, owner of Arrowhead Resort, reported business has been dismal this summer for most of the float operations on the Illinois River.
Revenue from the hotel and motel tax was down in June for Explore Cherokee, the county, by 24% over last year. For the city – Tour Tahlequah – revenue for June was up 17% over last year.
The weather in June 2024 was “great compared to this year,” said Nathan Reed, CEO and president of the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce during his report on the financials. He asked Spears if his information was correct, that every weekend but one was flooded out in June.
Spears, a member of the Tourism Council, told board members that six or seven Saturdays have been affected so far this summer.
“It could flood any other day, but if we aren’t able to float on Saturdays, we take a hit,” Spears said. “We are down 30%-35%, and that’s just us.”
He said up and down the river, every resort is down tremendously, and some of the smaller ones are saying if things don’t improve, they may not be able to remain open.
“From June and July, we are down 9,000 people,” Spears said. “And that’s not including our refunds – we’ve had to refund people for cancellations, because we aren’t going to keep their money if they can’t float.”
That’s a minimum of $300,000, and this is just for Arrowhead, Spears said.
“It’s probably affecting everybody in the city, too,” Spears said. “What can we do to try and help bring in business, because anything that helps out [by the lakes and river] helps the city.”
Some of the extra campaigns launched by TACC for tourism include streaming, radio, TV, and several social media boosts. The ads are covering the usual target areas with some added places, like Oklahoma City, Reed said.
“The gauge that is reported for the river …isn’t accurate for the whole river,” Spears said. “We are still getting calls asking is the river is open and is there E.coli,” Spears said.
This is a rare year for tourism on the river, Spears said.
“Peyton’s Place has been around for 60-70 years, and Trey Peyton said there hasn’t been a year like this since the ’70s and ’80s,” Spears said. “Hopefully this won’t continue because there aren’t many businesses out there that can sustain this kind of hit and maintain payroll.”
Spears said he has 45 employees and he has had to cut “way back.”
Marilyn Craig, representing the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians on the board, asked if promoting float trips in the fall was an option.
“Maybe people would want to float in September,” Craig said.
With school, football and the activities that fill the lives of students and parents, Spears said most aren’t thinking about activities on the rivers.
“A lot of our customers are families, and our busiest weekends have been these last few weekends in August,” Spears said. “It’s been one of those years and we just have to roll with it.”
Reed said Pam Hazen with War Eagle had to move the June reservations to August because July was booked.
It also affected lodging, said Traci Huggins, board member representing the hotel business.
“Because they would come in on Friday, thinking they could float on Saturday, and they would come to the desk Saturday morning, look at the river report and we advised them to call their outfitter because it looks like [you can’t float the river],” Huggins said.
The customers then checked out on Saturday instead of Sunday. The weather affected everybody, and the hotels she manages – Holiday Inn Express and Tru by Hilton – were down 10% in occupancy.
“That was even with this massive influx of construction people,” Huggins said. “We are lucky we had the construction people to help us keep us afloat.”
Board Chair Austin Patton said it cannot rain a drop in Tahlequah and the river can still be closed down.
Spears said Northwest Arkansas would receive lots of rain and then the river rose rapidly, and this required phoning all those with reservations to let them know the river conditions.
“It was logistically a nightmare,” Spears said. “I’m sure the lake had the same problem.”
Brian Smither, from Elk Creek Marina, attended the meeting as a guest, and said he talked to a contact at Table Rock, in Missouri, who owns four resorts in four states.
“This is not an isolated deal; across the board, he said he was down 25%-40% at these four resorts in Missouri, Florida, and Gulf Shores, Alabama,” Smither said.
Patton said there is a glimmer of hope. Looking at a few years of lodging tax revenue, he created a bar chart, and the mean average is still trending upward, even factoring in this year.
“But that doesn’t help anything right now, especially outfitters at the rivers, and even the marinas and different resorts and lodging at the lake,” Patton said.
A new committee has been formed, and the name settled on is Communications Committee, to address issues like this downturn in tourism.
“It will be responsible for stakeholder relationship management, public relation-type activities, putting together a plan to be engaging with the community, and for this council to get more involved in going out and spending time with business owners who are involved with and impacted by the tourism business.”
Something that hasn’t been utilized by the Tourism Council is putting out press releases, Patton said.
“I think this is a great job for the Communications Committee, where we can have all the experts from the rivers and lakes and hotels and restaurants, and release, preemptively and quickly, a press release, and correct the narrative [about the actual conditions of the river],” Patton said.
He said the reports from GRDA are very vague.
“The problem is, there is the Tahlequah gauge, and if you don’t know there are other gauges – there is an upper and lower part of the river with different levels,” Spears said. “There’s different guidelines with GRDA and an average person is going to look at one gauge and see it says 8 feet but up at our place it can be at 5 feet.”
What’s next
The next Tourism Council meeting is Sept. 18, 8 a.m., at the TACC office at 123 E. Delaware St.
