Tulsa’s visitors bureau has some more information to go on as it tries to draw more tourists to the city.
Oxford Economics branch Tourism Economics found 9.1 million people visited Tulsa in 2017.
"That’s a big number. I think a lot of people would think it was smaller than that. I think everybody appreciates tourism, but I think when you put it into numbers that show you the benefit that we get from visitors, that all of a sudden kind of makes it real," said VisitTulsa President Ray Hoyt.
Nearly half of those 9.1 million visitors came primarily to see friends or family, and two-thirds stayed for just the day. Hoyt said he’d like to see numbers for people coming just for fun and staying overnight increase.
"We do that through more attractions and more assets. So, when you think about OKPOP coming online and Bob Dylan [archives], those things are just more places to visit and to retain people so that maybe they do spend the night. So, if we build that infrastructure, we’ll probably pick that number up," Hoyt said.
According to the report, 2017 visitors spent $1.1 billion dollars, supporting more than 14,000 jobs and offsetting $518 in state and local taxes per household.
Visitor spending has increased almost 10 percent since 2013.
"That’s pretty strong. We have some work to do on the hotel side as part of this, but, clearly, I think we feel like we’re headed in the right direction, especially if you look at the prior years. Everything is trending up," Hoyt said.
Visitors in 2017 spent the most money on food and beverages at $322 million. They spent $247 million on retail goods and $197 million at hotels and motels.
Tourism Economics used a computer model of Tulsa's economy to evaluate the impact of tourism. Data on visitors and their spending came from lodging industry groups, City of Tulsa tax collections, and federal job and wage data.
