BENTONVILLE — It used to be that when John Lamparski went to tourism trade shows, he was the one pursuing national and regional companies to consider a stop at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.
Since the museum’s Nov. 11 opening date was announced last year nov. 18, 2010, he’s become the one being pursued.
“Now tour operators are requesting to meet with us,” said Lamparski, group tours sales manager for the Bentonville Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Officials expect hundreds of visitors to the museum each day, totaling 150,000 to 300,000 each year.
The national and regional bus tours — also called motor coach tours — typically put tourist packages together that might mix attractions in Northwest Arkansas with those in Little Rock, Eureka Springs, Tulsa or Kansas City, Mo. The tours might include small and large museums, unique local attractions, festivals, wineries, craft fairs or theme parks.
Lamparski said he’s been busy promoting Crystal Bridges to such tours in his three years on the job.
“What’s nice is, Crystal Bridges is coming into their lexicon as a hot spot,” Lamparski said.
A mix of the big attractions along with “hidden gems” is the best recipe for creating a successful bus tour, said Sue Evans, a tour manager at Kincaid Tours in Yukon, Okla., which belongs to the Edwardsville, Kans.-based Kincaid Coach Lines.
“We’re all a little guilty of not seeing things in our own backyard,” Evans said. “The more you have to offer in an area, the better, especially anytime you add an attraction and it’s something a little different and exciting.”
Kincaid Tours includes Arkansas destinations on its bus tour packages, roughly two-thirds of which are preplanned retail packages and the remainder customized tour trips that customers request in advance.
The company has included Bentonville in past tour packages because of area craft shows and train rides, she said. Other attractions are Eureka Springs and fall foliage in the Boston Mountains.
Lamparski said some central Arkansas attractions are the Clinton presidential library and Central High School in Little Rock and the Marlsgate Plantation in Scott.
Bentonville is becoming an attraction unto itself with the addition of Crystal Bridges.
“It’s no longer a stop on the way to Eureka Springs or Fort Smith,” Lamparski said.
Another representative for the Bentonville Convention and Visitors Bureau, Wendy Bader Engelbert, said the visitors bureau booked its first convention that will include a visit to Crystal Bridges.
The April 26-28 convention for members of the Southern Municipal League will include mayors and city officials from a 13-state area, said Engelbert, a sales manager.
The league will hold its big evening event at Crystal Bridges’ Great Hall.
“I think there’s a good chance they would have come anyway, but the fact that Crystal Bridges was opening was the icing on the cake,” she said.
In her three years in sales for the Bentonville visitors bureau, Engelbert said she’s known of several groups that have been holding off booking their conferences in Bentonville, choosing to wait until after the museum opens.
Crystal Bridges also will help Northwest Arkansas compete with the Little Rock area for in-state convention groups.
“With a lot of the state conventions, it is appealing to have their conventions in Little Rock because it’s centrally located,” Engelbert said. “Crystal Bridges definitely makes us more appealing, and they are willing to travel a little bit farther.”
In May, state tourism Director Joe David Rice told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the department will make Crystal Bridges prominent in its advertising campaigns because it gives the state access to a “different demographic audience,” meaning more affluent travelers willing to fly farther to get to Arkansas.
Lamparski and Evans said there’s an art to putting together appealing bus tour packages.
“If we had a crystal ball, we’d know what people wanted,” he said. “We put together a package and hope people will like it.”
In 2009, the agency booked eight bus tours, a number that increased to 12 in 2010 and 16 so far in 2011, Lamparski said.
“Our goal is to host between 30 and 40 bus tours in 2012,” he said. “This is ambitious for us.”
This article was previously published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Sept. 10, 2011.