Effort aims to promote small communities in Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas

By Kyle Troutman [email protected]

The Cassville Area Chamber of Commerce is joining more than a dozen chambers, Main Streets and communities across three states in a new effort to promote regional tourism and encourage residents to explore destinations closer to home.

The Tri-State Marketing & Tourism Alliance includes communities across southwest Missouri, northwest Arkansas and northeast Oklahoma. The alliance is designed to give smaller communities a collective marketing reach that would be difficult for any one chamber or community to achieve independently.

Morgan Williams, Cassville Area Chamber of Commerce director, said the Alliance was presented to her by John Newby, president and CEO of the McDonald County Chamber of Commerce.

“He was very excited and said that there was a potential to work with smaller communities, much like ourselves, McDonald County, and a way to partner so that we can collectively reach a greater good versus the smaller ones getting lost in the mix,” Williams said.

According to Newby, the alliance currently represents more than 5,000 businesses, hundreds of thousands of social media followers and more than 400,000 residents across the three states.

The region stretches from Pryor, Okla., to the west, as far north as Joplin and Springfield, the Branson area to the east and roughly Fayetteville, Ark., to the south. Participating communities currently have populations of fewer than 50,000.

Williams said the goal is to encourage people to find vacation and recreational opportunities within the region rather than traveling farther away.

“The whole goal is to offer a vacation spot in your backyard,” she said. “Keep our tourism and our sales tax dollars local to benefit the counties that we live in and that we’re trying to grow and keep thriving.”

For Cassville, Williams said Roaring River State Park provides an obvious tourism draw, while other communities in the alliance offer attractions she was previously unfamiliar with despite being less than an hour away.

“There’s things that go on over there that I had no idea about, and they’re less than an hour’s drive from us, and vice versa,” Williams said. “So, even in northwest Arkansas, and even in Oklahoma, there’s a lot of people there that some of them surprisingly have never heard of Roaring River.”

The alliance’s first project will be Ozarks 411, a print and digital magazine focused on tourism and regional lifestyle.

Williams said approximately 15,000 copies will be produced each quarter, for a total of about 60,000 copies annually distributed throughout the region. The publication will include community events, attractions and things to do throughout the participating communities.

“It’s a tourism guide,” Williams said. “We’ll be able to promote local stuff like our community events, but also things to do in the area, like the lake and the river.”

The effort also will include a Facebook page and website to supplement the print publication.

Newby said the alliance is intended to provide businesses with access to a three-state audience without requiring them to negotiate separate advertising agreements with numerous communities.

“Together, we’re impossible to ignore,” Newby said. “That’s the whole idea: the sum of this group is far greater than the total of its individual parts, and the reach we are building together simply doesn’t exist anywhere else in the region.”

Williams said participating chambers will handle their own advertising commitments. She said the arrangement is intended to remain affordable for smaller businesses.

Newby said businesses that belong to a participating chamber can purchase a full-page advertisement in Ozarks 411 for hundreds of dollars, rather than the thousands of dollars often associated with similar regional advertising opportunities.

Williams said Cassville’s participation will likely include a community calendar of events and a sponsorship opportunity, although final details have yet to be determined.

The alliance also is intended to encourage tourism between neighboring communities, with visitors traveling to one community potentially discovering other destinations during their trips.

Williams said McDonald County recently released a bike trail map showing routes and alternatives extending from Northwest Arkansas through McDonald County and as far east as Cassville.

“While it’s not the traditional bike trails that you think of in Northwest Arkansas, it offers bicyclists dirt roads, different alternatives to be able to extend their trip even further,” she said.

Williams said the regional approach also fits with another tourism project she is developing with Mount Vernon, Aurora and Monett.

The group is creating a smaller regional tourism effort called Explore the Four, which will include its own website and social media presence.

“I was working on that with those three, and then this came about, and I was like, ‘Well, OK, we’ll do all the things,’” Williams said.

Newby said the Alliance grew out of conversations among chamber and Main Street leaders who recognized the challenges smaller communities face when competing for attention with larger regional destinations.

The founding participants include the Cassville Chamber, Berryville Chamber, Bella Vista Business Association, Centerton Chamber, Decatur Chamber, Gentry Chamber, Gravette Chamber, Grove Chamber, Hollister Chamber, Miami Visitors and Convention Bureau, Monett Chamber, Mount Vernon, McDonald County Chamber, Rea Ridge and Pryor Chamber, among others.

Newby said nearly 40 communities have expressed interest, although the Alliance will not count communities toward its total reach until their numbers are confirmed.

Williams said she is particularly interested in the opportunity to promote Cassville and the surrounding area to people who may not otherwise consider it a tourism destination.

“It’s exciting,” she said. “I think it’s a great way to be able to reach multiple people in Southwest Missouri, Northwest Arkansas and Northeast Oklahoma.”

The effort also comes as local communities look for additional ways to promote themselves following the closure of the Barry County Advertiser, Williams said.

She said the continued availability of print material remains important, noting the Cassville Chamber recently brought back its visitors’ guide after several years without one.

“A lot of people like to still have print in hand,” she said. “We recently brought back our visitors’ guide after not having one for a few years, and that seems to have gone over really well and been a big hit.”

Newby said the Alliance is intended to give smaller communities and businesses a larger collective voice while keeping tourism dollars circulating within the region.

“With retail struggling and AI and robotics taking jobs, tourism and lifestyle are one of the remaining economic engines left for our communities,” Newby said. “By working together instead of in isolation, we can send visitors, and their dollars, flowing between our communities in a way none of us could generate alone.”

Williams said the alliance gives Cassville another avenue to showcase what the community and surrounding area have to offer while also building relationships with neighboring communities. The initiative is built around the idea that communities can benefit by promoting one another rather than competing for the same visitors.

“We’re not here to compete with anyone,” Newby said. “We’re here to prove what’s possible when communities stop doing it alone.”