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Holiday Tourism Booming In Eureka Springs

More Tourists This Holidays, Business Owners Say

It may be the slow season for one local town, but Eureka Springs residents said business is still booming. Business owners, such as Susan Tharp of Old Time Photos, said the holidays bring a small burst of business to the town. "This week has been busier than normal just because school's out. Families (are) tired of dealing with kids and looking for something for them to do. So they have been pounding us pretty good this week," Tharp said.

Amanda Haley of Crescent Hotel Electronic Marketing said their peak seasons are in the summer months and October for fall travel. "But now, with this great weather, we are looking good. We have occupancy during the week which is really great for us and the weekends are also looking pretty solid right now," Haley said.

Haley said people have also been calling their office, inquiring about possible visits to the Crystal Bridges.

Tourism in Eureka Springs is slower in January and February, but there are still some unique deals in the area. "A lot of folks actually find it fun to stay here when it is snowing. It is more like your own private resort," Haley said.

Businesses said Eureka Springs is a tourist destination for all seasons. "It does slow down but we are not closed. It isn't a ghost town, that is for sure," Tharp said.

Road tripping to Arkansas, stocked with caffeine

When KansasCity.comEditor Amanda Wilkins wanted a relaxing road trip, she chose Eureka Springs and wrote about it in her Christmas Day article that featured locals stores, restaurants, trolley tours and bed & breakfasts.

Top Ten Coolest Small Towns In America

Eureka Springs was named one of the "Ten Coolest Small Towns In America" by the readers of Budget Travel. Other cities include Lewisburg, WV, Astoria, OR, Clayton, NY, LaPointe, WI, Phoenicia, NY, Newtown Borough, PA, Cedar Key, FL, Ripon, WI and Greensburg, KS.

Here is what Budget Travel had to say about our city.

Honeymoons and More

Sure, you could sleep in one of the Queen Anne-style B&Bs, visit the monumental 67-foot-tall hilltop Christ of the Ozarks, catch a Branson-style show, or hunt for ghosts in the historic downtown. You could easily spend a week on the tourist circuit in this late-1800s Victorian spa retreat. But you'd never get to meet the real Eureka Springs.

Eureka Springs may be the honeymoon capital of the Ozarks, but don't let the kitschy, heart-shaped Jacuzzis fool you. "The guy on the street corner playing fiddle?" says local artist Cathy Harris. "He is a trained concert violinist." "And those men at the bar just may be geniuses," adds Harris's husband, J.D., a sculptor with beaded gray dreadlocks. "We had a team win the international Mensa competition two years in a row."

The current of creativity bubbles up just about everywhere, if you look hard enough. At the Eureka Thyme gallery, Marsha Havens skips the trinkets of other tourist traps in favor of works that draw on Ozark inspirations: wooden bowls made from found downed trees and clay bird whistles that warble like the real thing (19 Spring St., eurekathyme.com, wooden bowls from $50). You might even say that an artisan spirit is part of the recipe of Garden Bistro, where partners Lana Campbell and Robert Herrera draw from local ingredients for their Amish-style bread baked in flowerpots and unfussy plates of family-style veggies grown on her farm (119 N. Main St., 479/253-1281, pork chops $19).

The biggest surprise of all may be the 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa, a palatial ivy-covered grand hotel with claw-foot tubs and manicured gardens (75 Prospect Ave., crescent-hotel.com, doubles from $129). From this perch, you'll be inclined to look back to see Eureka Springs, but the leafy Ozarks keep the valley all but hidden from view—an apt vista for a town dubbed Tree City USA. -Nicholas DeRenzo