The Outdoor Recreation and Sports Tourism master's program at the University of Arkansas is now (checks calendar) eight days old. Jamie Cathey, coordinator of the new program in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation, the College of Education and Health Professions, says the inaugural semester is off to a pretty good start.
Jamie Cathey: It's been really fun. So I'm here primarily because of the outdoor rec and sport tourism program, because that's what I do professionally and it's my area of expertise that I love to teach the most. But I also, because of my events background within that space, I get to teach the event management class for undergrads.
So I get to talk about sports tourism and event management and how, on the sports tourism side, we're seeking events or bringing events to town. And then on the event production side, we're getting to design these events that people in the community want to take part of or take part in, or also people that were coming in from the outside.
Kyle Kellams: So when you talk about trying to be a place where people bring their events, we're a decade into the LPGA event that happens in Rogers. There are other races that happen. But does that also include summertime AAU basketball and volleyball and things like that?
Cathey: Absolutely it does. So that includes those sports tourism events that we grew up doing, going to weekend baseball tournaments, going to softball tournaments, going to volleyball tournaments, Pop Warner football leagues, AAU basketball, all of it. All of that is all part of the wheel of sports tourism.
Kellams: You can't talk about outdoor sports in Northwest Arkansas without talking about two wheels.
Cathey: You cannot. Especially with me because I'm so deeply in the cycling community.
Kellams: So is that continuing to grow?
Cathey: It is. So I am the event director for the stage race. I am the project manager for the Arkansas Graveler. Both of those are on two wheels. And so with the stage race, this was our first year. We built it from the ground up and we used the brand of the OZ Trails to build this really amazing experience in Northwest Arkansas, primarily based in Bentonville and Bella Vista. But people come here because they know what our outdoor mountain biking and cycling culture is. And so we built it in a way that featured all of the major trail systems in Bentonville and Bella Vista.
But then we also put a significant investment into what the participant experience was going to be like when she got off the bike, because it's a full thing. It's not just come here for an event, it has come here for an event, see what we have to offer, go to Crystal Bridges, go downtown, go to the Walmart Museum, come down to Fayetteville and go down Dickson Street. Do all of those things that make this area really special. And that's what's so important about understanding tourism and what drives it and what that economic impact really gets created from.
Kellams: I think about some surrounding states, I think of Iowa and they have RAGBRAI, which is some of my favorite events in the world, cross-state bicycle. I guess it's technically a race, but most people do it just for an experience. They've been doing it for a long time. And you think about Northwest Arkansas Hogeye Marathon, 50 years old, but it seems like it's only, I shouldn't say only, but in the last 15 or so years, it's really exploded in this area.
Cathey: Yeah.
Kellams: And I imagine part of what you're doing is to help it grow more.
Cathey: It is. So we try to create events or recruit events that highlight our destination, show people that this is a place to come, not just for your core product, not just for that basketball tournament or baseball tournament or bicycle ride or whatever, but it's also a really cool place to come and eat, to come and go to a theater show, come and tour a museum, all of those things. And it's a way to drive economic activity into these cities.
So I mentioned the Arkansas Graveler. This is the third year of the Arkansas Graveler, and it is a RAGBRAI style ride. It's just on gravel. First year we started actually on this campus. We started at the stadium and rode across and we finished at Arkansas State. Last year we started in Mena and rode across to Russellville.
This year, as our continuing effort to try to highlight different areas of the state, but then also to line up with the governor, Gov. Sanders, and her initiative, the Natural State Initiative. We are going down to the Delta, so we're going to start where we finished in year one, and we are going to leave the ASU campus, and we're going to ride over five days down to Arkansas City, which is the former capital of Arkansas. But we're stopping along the way in state parks. We're stopping in Helena, and we're going to go to the King Biscuit Blues Festival. We're going to Stuttgart. Who knew, the capital of the world?
Kellams: Rice capital.
Cathey: Rice capital.
Kellams: Also duck hunting.
Cathey: So we're exposing people. Bike is our vehicle literally and metaphorically to help people see what our region has to offer.
Kellams: How important is outdoor recreation or sports tourism to Arkansas?
Cathey: Significant. So on this campus alone, you have athletics and this is off of the UofA website. $262 million, a little over $262 million economic impact.
Kellams: $262 million.
Cathey: Yeah.
Kellams: For people. And that would be lodging, food.
Cathey: Right. So you're calculating that with people come here and, if you're going to stay a couple of nights, you got to book a hotel or a short term rental, you're going to be eating, you're going to be shopping in our stores. You're going to be buying souvenirs. You're going to be doing all of those things that drive economic impact.
And then for the state level, so our state, in the most recent study, over 54 million visitors to our state. That is $10.2 billion in direct spending. That's your hotels. That's your going into the bars. That's going in and buying souvenirs, maybe buying tickets, things like that. But that money multiplies. So it's not just the bar that you go into. That bar owner has got to buy some supplies, they've got to hire some staff to make sure that they can serve you properly. So that money starts to multiply out over time. And then those people that staff that now, I've got some extra money in my pocket. I'm going to go spend money in the economy. That's where you get the real total economic impact numbers. And that number for the state is a little over $17 billion in total economic impact.
Kellams: If I was a student in this major, getting my master's in this, what would I be doing over the course of a semester?
Cathey: So a little bit, it depends on what your interest area is. The outdoor economy, my students this week are going to listen to a podcast with Katherine Andrews and Becky Flynn, who are in the Office of Outdoor Recreation. It is. They have done an amazing job of building an outdoor economy from scratch, and you're going to learn how they did that.
Then on the other side of it, you've got the tourism element, where Arkansas Tourism and Dalaney Thomas is at the head of that. And what they have all combined together to do to create this destination that is Arkansas, and that is The Natural State and highlight all of the different regions. So you're going to learn about that.
But then you have your traditional sports tourism that happens at the more localized level. And that is UofA athletics. That's those tournaments that we talk about that are your weekends where you're spending with your family and how to make those something more than just come here for a day, play some baseball and go home. We want people to stay here longer, and we want to give them more opportunities to do things. So I am a huge advocate of these events are just a blank slate, a core product that we can offer and build and stack these experiences onto in this really cool destination that helps people see this is a really cool spot.
But then you've also got the business side of it. We are an actual business. So you don't just need to learn about how to manage an event and how to create a destination marketing plan or understand how we've built it in Arkansas, which is an amazing case study. You need to know how to run the business too. You need to know how to hire the staff. You need to know how to find the revenue streams, how to find your sponsors, how to price your own products. You need to take some lessons in entrepreneurship, because a lot of what has happened in Northwest Arkansas particularly is entrepreneurship, and that's happened in other areas too.
I'm working with a partner right now called Delta Dirt Distillery in Helena, and I'm so excited to work with them. And there we get to introduce their products to our travelers that are coming in from all across the country and some international too.
What's really important in this program, and it's really important to you and my undergraduate event management class, is that that field experience is actually happening so that you can see it at the ground level, hands on, not just learning about it from me talking about it or me telling you to read an article or a textbook or a report or whatever it is.
My undergraduate students are actually going to work the LPGA tournament and see how core product is a golf tournament. But there's BITE NWA, there's a 5K, there's a women's summit, there's yoga, there's all these other things that are associated with it that continue to drive more opportunity, both locally and at the tourism generation element.
Jamie Cathey is coordinator of the new outdoor recreation and sports tourism master's program at the University of Arkansas. It is in its first semester right now. We spoke at the Carver Center for Public Radio yesterday.
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