The head of online city guide Root Tulsa says since its self-guided historic tour of the Greenwood District has proven popular, more is in the works.
Executive Director Matt Carney told city councilors more than 4,400 people have taken the tour since it launched in late May by scanning QR codes at points of interest or visiting RootTulsa.com.
There’s also a Route 66 tour available, and there are plans to add points of interest to both itineraries, like Morton Clinic on the Greenwood tour. City Councilor Jeannie Cue said she’s looking forward to the tours highlighting new parts of Tulsa.
"One of my heartbreaks as always in Councilor [Crista] Patrick’s district, not even having really recognition where Cyrus Avery had his businesses. And we hope to improve that," Cue said.
Avery created Route 66 while serving on a federal board tasked with creating the federal highway system.
Carney said Root Tulsa is also working on installing permanent signs instead of decals at existing tour stops and looking to add another tour.
"What’s next, what we’re looking toward is developing a historic music tour of Tulsa in collaboration with FMAC and the chamber in order to highlight local sites of musical significance, as well as upgrades to my own website. We’ve got some plans in place to improve site load, improve discoverability on the website and to incorporate tours a little more smoothly into the rest of the website," Carney said.
FMAC is the Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts and Culture. It is a division of Tulsa Regional Tourism.
Carney said RootTulsa.com has averaged almost 20,000 visitors a month since May. A good share of those visitors are potential out-of-state tourists, with 15% of traffic coming from the Dallas area alone.
Note: Root Tulsa is a program of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, which is a financial supporter of KWGS.
