Visit Tulsa (safely) – Ray Hoyt, Tulsa Regional Tourism

Welcome to Tulsa Talks presented by Tulsa Regional Chamber. I’m your host Tim Landes. 

In a normal year, we would have recently celebrated Oktoberfest. We also would have enthusiastically taken part in Tulsa Tough weekend, and watched as super humans competed in the Iron Man competition. There would have been sold out shows at concert venues and the hotels would have been at capacity many nights. 

According to Tulsa Regional Tourism, more than 9 million people visit Tulsa a year and spend more than a billion dollars in the community in a normal year. 

As we all know 2020 has been far from anywhere remotely close to normal. 

My guest on this episode is Ray Hoyt, president of Tulsa Regional Tourism. If there’s anybody in Tulsa who has a grasp on the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Tulsa’s tourism business, it’s Ray. 

When he came to Tulsa in September 2010, the BOK Center was a couple years old and Oneok Field was in its first year. Guthrie Green was still a parking lot and there were a lot less attractions in the Arts District.

As you’ll hear in this conversation, he wasn’t sold on Tulsa when first asked about the job opportunity, but that obviously changed.

Over the last decade has overseen our city’s tourism efforts as the city has grown to welcome the millions of visitors who aren’t just driving through or connecting flights at Tulsa international Airport. 

The recent addition of the Gathering Place and it’s national coverage in USA Today, the New York Times and more helped make Ray’s job a little easier. There’s also the resurgence of Route 66. We talk about both. 

Tulsa Tough and its Cry Baby Hill will return. Iron Man is rescheduled for 2021. There are new museums being built and older ones going through renovations. We discuss all those great things still to come. 

For Ray, his attention is currently on helping safely reopen Tulsa because the city needs to have hotels, restaurants, museums and stores open for visitors to return. He shares the importance of the Tulsa Safely program as we progress toward the holidays and new year. 

In this conversation we recorded on Sept. 28, Ray discusses how tourism is slowly coming back seven months after the pandemic shut down our city. 

In a city and state where the budget is largely funded from tax dollars, it’s vitally important our city’s leaders find ways to help our local businesses generate revenues. 

As you’ll hear, Ray is passionate about his job and he and his team are working hard to help Tulsa recover and then resume its mission to become a major tourist draw in the middle in the of the U.S.  And if there’s one thing we have going for us, it’s that the Mother Road runs right through the middle of town. 

I enjoyed chatting with Ray and learning from him. We’re in good hands. 

Following my conversation, The Voice digital editor and music writer Kyra Bruce shares the new song “Together” from Tulsa hip-hop artist Benzo. More on him later. 

OK, let’s get this going. 

This is Tulsa Talks with Ray Hoyt.