Tourism in Chickasha is #TheGoodStuff
So…where are you from?
When you mention the word tourism to most people in Chickasha, they immediately think of the Festival of Light and for good reason. According to TravelOk, Oklahoma’s tourism website, The Festival of Light is “recognized as one of the top ten light shows in the nation”. Everyone knows that this annual event draws huge crowds every holiday season, many traveling from far away distances just to experience our Chickasha tradition.
Among Oklahoma’s major industries, tourism is the state’s third-largest, but besides the Festival of Light, have you ever considered the impact of tourism on Chickasha?
The Grady County Fairgrounds is one of our top economic/tourism engines. An economic impact study done in 2018 revealed the Oklahoma High School Rodeo had an over $50,000 impact on Chickasha’s economy. That is just ONE weekend event! The Fairgrounds hosts events almost every week of the year, sometimes having multiple events going on in the same week.
It’s easy to see the economic impact of our Sport Complex. The hotels and restaurants are full of kids and their parents dressed in team uniforms. They enjoy their time between games visiting our many retail businesses.
USAO has been bringing visitors to our Community for decades. Potential students and their parents enjoying a campus visits, competing sports teams, friends and families of existing students all impact our tourism economy here in Chickasha.
In the past couple of months I have learned that our Quilt Shops in Downtown draw many weekly visitors. Quilt Shop Hops bring people from all over the Country to Chickasha to shop, eat and stay. It’s amazing to learn how far they travel on these Shop Hops.
We also have several destination restaurants that cause people to drive substantial distances just to eat here in Chickasha. The fact that we have state highways intersect in our Downtown as well as the easy access of the turnpike all help our tourism industry.
This month, our Community is working together to promote “Christmas in July”. Our Christmas Tree will be lit every night in July and the Community Theater will be showing Christmas movies every Thursday night. There will be a local restaurant donating food to be sold at the concession stand each night too.
We have launched a marketing campaign to encourage people to Visit Chickasha. A Facebook page for Visit Chickasha was created to answer the question: “What’s going on Chickasha?” I encourage you to watch the video that was posted there recently. It was produced here locally and showcases so much of what we have to offer. Once you watch the video I think you will see that here in Chickasha, we really do have “A Wonderful Life” and that is definitely #TheGoodStuff.
