2025 Tourism Outlook: Mark Hecquet

What are some of the largest draws to the Springfield area, and how do you plan to continue to develop tourism?
We were the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau, and now we’re Visit Springfield. We went through this long branding process to better understand our city and how to promote it to visitors not only today, but for the future. Wonders of Wildlife and Bass Pro’s home here attracts millions of visitors every year. But we have lots of other attractions in our city that also bring lots of visitors, from Route 66 to the arts, sports and we have our university scene. In 2026, we have the Route 66 centennial, which has a great international draw. We will do a lot more in the international market in 2025 to promote that, to bring audiences from around the world into Springfield. The sports market is a big market that we focus on. We manage the Sports Commission here, and we’ve got new venues with Cooper/Killian improvements. We’ve been working a ton with the fairgrounds. There are so many great things going on in Springfield, and our job here is to keep telling that story in creative and imaginative ways.

Big draws such as Silver Dollar City and Wonders of Wildlife that continually are investing and upgrading – how is this affecting the Springfield tourism market?
Silver Dollar City and Wonders of Wildlife are both best in class in the country and have been recognized as such. Wonders of Wildlife has been recognized six times in a row by USA Today, and Silver Dollar City has been recognized as the No. 1 theme park, so they’re huge important assets to our tourism mix, and their ongoing enhancement only increases the visibility of Springfield as a destination. We think of it as Springfield is the hub, and we have these spokes out to really cool places. They’ll stay here, they’ll experience the cool dining scene, the cultural scene, but then they’ll spend a day at Silver Dollar City, they’ll spend a day down in Branson or go to the lakes. It just continues to position us as a premium destination.

How are you utilizing branding and identity to continue the draw into 2025?
It’s absolutely essential to everything we do on how we market our city and our attractions. We’ve used this Visit Springfield as a tagline, but it’s much more than a tagline. It’s really supposed to be a reflection of who we are and what we represent and that sort of expression itself. We want it to talk to the authentic nature of Springfield to weave all the cool things or combine all the history, the culture and experiences that can’t be found anywhere else. We want to create a connection with a visitor to why Springfield really is the place to visit, and it’s authentic and original, and have the community buy into that vision as well. We’re the one real key city within the Ozarks, and that is very appealing in itself. We have people from around the world who are here touring Route 66 every day, and we have top-class attractions here. You weave that all together, and it is truly a unique place.

Have inflation costs affected tourism locally?
We are not a big city. We’re not a European city. We’re very drivable for a lot of the population. So, we can offer really high-quality experiences at a lower cost than other big metropolitan areas, which makes us more attractive. Yes, costs are going up on hotel stays and flights, but for some visitors, that is sort of something that Springfield can position itself more favorably than others can.