Northwest Arkansas tourism, hotel industry show upswing

Some of the top hotels in the state and the country have set up shop in Northwest Arkansas as tourism to the area rebounds from the recession years.

TripAdvisor ranked Bentonville's 21c Museum Hotel, open since early 2013, as the No. 7 hotel in the country this year. Fayetteville's Pratt Place Inn is the only one in Benton and Washington counties to earn AAA's Four-Diamond ranking and is one of two Forbes 4-star hotels in the state this year.

"Everybody's got a piece of the action," said Marilyn Heifner, treasurer for the Northwest Arkansas Tourism Association, in February. "We're no longer the sleepy little towns in Arkansas that nobody's ever heard of."

Washington and Benton counties in January were home to 98 hotels with 8,235 rooms, according to a report from Tennessee-based STR, which monitors and analyzes the hotel industry.

Those numbers are down a few dozen rooms from the 2013 peak, but the report shows that they're filled more often. Demand, or the number of room-nights purchased, shot up 30 percent between 2009 and 2014, according to the report. Hotels were more than half-full on the average night.

"This is a booming part of the country," said Julian Archer, co-owner of the Pratt Place. "If you want to go to a part of the country which is really economically and culturally active, you should put Northwest Arkansas on your map. There are few places like it."

A 21c Hotel spokeswoman didn't return calls to her office in February and March requesting comment.

Heifner pointed to the opening of Bentonville's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2011 as the start of the area's tourism resurgence. Since then, events at new sports fields, Rogers' Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion, the University of Arkansas and other places have continued the momentum, she said.

"All those things put together certainly have helped bring people to the area, and they see there's other things to do," Heifner said.

Almost 2.6 million tourists visited the state's northwest corner in 2013 and spent $783 million, according to the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism's annual report last year. Both figures were up 5 percent from the year before and made Northwest Arkansas the second-most visited part of the state, after the Little Rock area.

A few hundred thousand of those visitors came for Fayetteville's Bikes, Blues & BBQ motorcycle festival in late summer, perhaps the region's largest single event of the year.

"There are people who come every year, and as soon as they leave, they will make reservations" for next year, said Joe Giles, the event's director. "We fill most of the hotel rooms probably within a 50- or 60-mile radius."

The event is so big, hotels here can't handle it, Giles said. Accommodations across the state borders and campgrounds throughout the area must pick up the slack.

"I think the market is generating more rooms as they're needed," Heifner said, adding she expected tourism and hotel use to continue upward.

The industry here has its hiccups. Bentonville's Four Points by Sheraton, which recently opened, originally was planned for a late 2013 opening. A message left with the hotel's main office seeking comment the week of the opening wasn't returned.

A proposed hotel and convention center near the Walton College of Business is on hold until certain tax credits are allocated this summer, university spokesmen have said.

The owners of Pratt Place also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, allowing the hotel to stay open while paying creditors.

Archer said the action wasn't because of weakness at the hotel, which he said provides a one-of-a-kind luxury experience.

"From the point of view of the hotel, things are going as they always have," he said.

Dan Holtmeyer can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @NWADanH.