The City of Tulsa and Tulsa Regional Tourism have worked years to bring a convention center hotel to downtown.

Earlier this month in Utah, a Tulsa delegation heard firsthand what a project of that caliber can mean to a city.

Salt Lake City opened a 700-room Hyatt Regency in 2021, and in its first year, it became Hyatt’s top revenue generator, said Kaitlin Eskelson, president and CEO of Visit Salt Lake.

“It has raised the average daily (hotel) rate by $30 across the entire city,” said Eskelson, who participated in a panel discussion on tourism at the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s Intercity Visit to Salt Lake City. “That means that all the hotels across the board, not only are they experiencing greater occupancy by several percentage points, but they also are receiving greater average daily rates, which are a huge indicator of hotels’ long-term health.”

Surveys consistently show that 75% of delegates new to Salt Lake City say they will return because of their exposure to the area, Eskelson said of the city’s enhanced convention business.

“We now have that product that we can sell, and it brings not only bigger groups but also better groups and ones that want to spend more money and that better align with our economic pillars,” she said.

“We are able to attract those groups that are like-minded. So, it’s exposing them at the onset, but they are returning to have those relocation discussions. It has transformed our entire community and really brought in additional money and investment to our entire region.”

Tulsa recently chose Dallas-based developer Matthews Hospitality to build its proposed 650-room, $350 million convention center hotel, which is expected to be completed in 2029.

Salt Lake City’s convention center hotel has done wonders for its visitor economy, which brings into Salt Lake County $6 billion annually, equating to $500 million in tax revenue, Eskelson said.

“What we always say about them is that they are a little bit like grandkids,” she said of visitors. “They come. You love on them, and they leave. And you don’t have to house them. You don’t have to educate them. They are doing limited damage to your roads and to your utility infrastructure and things like that.”

Salt Lake City also benefits from a tourism industry that leverages a lodging tax that, at 17%, is more than three times higher than Tulsa’s.

“These tax dollars for the most part are coming from non-residents,” Eskelson said. “Also, politicians really love to tax non-residents, which is fine if we’re getting something out of that. But if you stick in that sweet spot and leverage it appropriately back to the intended use, it can be a really powerful thing.”

David Cannon represented the other half of the tourism panel, which was moderated by Renee McKenney, senior vice president of tourism for the Tulsa Regional Chamber and president of Tulsa Regional Tourism.

Cannon is executive vice president of commercial real estate for Larry H. Miller Real Estate. The Miller family owned the NBA’s Salt Lake City-based Utah Jazz for decades, and its real estate arm specializes in sports venue anchored-, mixed-use development.

One of the company’s projects under way is Downtown Daybreak, whose centerpiece is the 8,000-seat ballpark for the Salt Lake City Bees, a Class AAA baseball team located in the suburb of South Jordan.

Miller Real Estate also wants to development 100 acres of local land to build a stadium to lure a Major League Baseball team to Salt Lake City.

“You want to create a great place that feels great and fun when it’s high tide, when the crowd rushes in for a soccer game or a baseball game,” Cannon said. “But when the tide goes out, you don’t want it to be boring and stale and dead.

“You want there to be pockets of fun, with great local restaurants to go to. I think there are great synergies in having a more holistic view to venues and places than just those peak events.”

Cannon offered straightforward tourism advice for Tulsa.

“The solutions we have here in Salt Lake aren’t the same solutions you have in Tulsa,” he said. “You need to play to your strengths and be uniquely you and authentic… What is missing in your market and what to people love about Tulsa, and then lean into that hard.”

This article covered programming from the Tulsa Regional Chamber Intercity Visit to Salt Lake City. Each, fall, the Chamber leads a three-day Intercity Visit during which leaders learn how other regions approach growth and learning challenges. Topics often include development, infrastructure and workforce.

Click here to view takeaways from previous visits.