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Visit Bartlesville gave its annual report before the Bartlesville Development Authority on Wednesday, which showed that economic impact is on the rise.

Executive Director Maria Gus said Visit Bartlesville's goal and effort is to ensure that they're making a positive return on the community's investment in tourism. She said they believe their annual report demonstrates their mission.

Visit Bartlesville's events and their fiscal impact were discussed. Gus said they do this annual report to look at just a sampling of the events that they support whether it be financially or in-kind. She said they compared these events to functions that they've supported in the past to provide a snapshot of how Visit Bartlesville is putting money into Bartlesville's economy.

Gus said they review and track economic impact, people at events, and visitor spending. She said visitor spending is tracked based on a formula from the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, which is an estimate of visitor spending when they come into your community either for a day visit or for an overnight stay.

This tracking allows Visit Bartlesville to produce numbers that show the lodging tax that is generated, and the sales tax that is generated, year over year, by their work and efforts. Gus said their budget was around $320,000 this year. She said they were able to track and see that there was an economic and fiscal impact of approximately $650,000.

Gus said larger events were not able to take place due to the coronavirus pandemic, but they were extremely grateful of the larger functions that took place outdoors. In fiscal year 2019, Gus said their overall attendance at events they were tracking was around 138,000. She said attendance dropped to approximately 82,000 people in 2020.

Because of lodging nights and the number of people that are here due to the production of "Gray Horse," - the future movie adaptation of David Grann's best-selling book Killers of the Flower Moon - Gus said they've been able to make up the difference. Gus said there continues to be a huge economic impact with the money from the Visit Bartlesville budget.

Visit Bartlesville's economic impact in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 was a little over $38-million. Gus said that dropped to $21-million in FY2020. However, in FY2021, Gus said that they've already jumped back up to about $30-million. She said the film production and people wanting to get back out after a year of isolation due to the pandemic is the cause for this significant revival; people want to get out and do more.

The challenge with having the movie production in Bartlesville is that they've taken a large number of hotel rooms. Gus said smaller market meetings that usual take place such as conventions, conferences, reunions, and more, may not occur as often because so many rooms are taken. As a result, Gus said Visit Bartlesville is making the extra effort to market to daytime visitors. She said they want their visitors to know that there's plenty to do, plenty to see, and plenty to enjoy during the day in Bartlesville.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a key driver, representing almost 60-percent of all fiscal impact generated and accounting for almost $16-million in economic impact to date. Gus said they believe that low hotel availability is only temporary through fall 2021.

Gus said she is happy to be a part of Visit Bartlesville and that she loves being able to help people make memories. She said budgets are always challenging, but its always worth the effort to continue to sell the great community that is Bartlesville.