A long-standing partnership between the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission and the city’s historical museum will continue for the foreseeable future.

The CAPC recently renewed a contract with the Eureka Springs Historical Museum, which will continue to serve as a visitors center as it has for at least the past 24 years.

CAPC director Mike Maloney and Jeff Danos, director of the museum, went over the new contract with commissioners at the commission’s monthly meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 27.

The contract calls for the CAPC to pay the museum $600 a month, the same amount that’s been in place since approximately 2013, commissioners were told.

“What we’re doing is basically creating a contract for services,” Maloney said. “This is not a donation, this is not a handout, this is a bona fide contract to provide a service back to the citizens of Eureka Springs …” The CAPC has contracted with the museum, located at 95 S. Main St., as visitors enter the downtown area, since 2001.

“I think there is a lot of confusion around this contract, but to make it clear, this is a service contract,” Danos said. “It is not a donation to the museum. It’s not some sort of special funding for the museum, and it doesn’t have anything to do with a marketing support request. This is a different issue. It’s just like if you were to pay somebody to wash your windows or clean your toilets, something like that. It’s the fee that we charge for actual services that are performed.

“If we didn’t perform those services, I would not be sending you an invoice every month. We’re not in that business.”

The museum will continue to have signs outside the building indicating that it also serves as a visitors center. It also will continue to have parking available for guests, along with a public restroom, Danos said.

Materials such as rack cards and pamphlets will continue to be housed in the facility advertising any and all businesses and attractions in the city, and staff will be on hand five days a week to welcome guests and answer questions, give directions and hand out maps, Danos said.

“This contract has been there for quite a while,” Danos said. “I wasn’t involved obviously in 2001, but it’s my understanding that at the time the CAPC was looking to have a visitor center downtown and did not have the space or the staff to run it themselves.

“And so the museum, if you’re wondering why the museum, I believe a big part of it is about the location. The museum is in a unique position because we are right there at the south entrance to downtown. We do have free parking while you’re inside the museum in the visitor center. And we have a public restroom, which is kind of rare downtown. We even have a picnic area next door … So, to us it’s the perfect place for visitors to start their vacation, and we do get a lot of people that do that. They come in, they look through our rack cards, we give them guidelines, we give them advice, whatever they need, we help them with the parking downtown, we’ve helped them install the parking apps on their phones and learn how to navigate that. So, I think it’s a good place for them to gather the tourism information if they haven’t already done all of that before they arrive. And, of course, they can learn a little bit of history while they’re there.”

Danos told commissioners that museum staff members make it a point to treat all visitors the same and give equal treatment to all businesses in town.

“As for the services themselves, we’re a friendly and knowledgeable welcome center essentially for Eureka Springs,” he said. “I believe that we do a pretty good job of that. The museum is a safe space. We treat all of our guests equally. While in the visitor center area, we have two full freestanding [racks] for the rack cards. We advertise local attractions, events, lodging, pretty much anybody locally that wants to bring us one of those rack cards, we will put it in the rack. … So, we do try to be very non-biased about everything we do. I know that it can be difficult, because folks come in and they always want to know what’s your favorite restaurant or what’s your favorite this or favorite that. I think we do a pretty good job of basically helping them to choose where they want to eat versus telling them where we like to eat as much as we might want to do that.

“… I tried Googling because I just wanted to make sure: What does a visitor center do? And I believe we’re ticking all the boxes. I know we’re ticking all of the ones that are in the contract, and if there are things that are not in the contract that you feel should be, we’re certainly open to talking about that and figuring that out.”

While visiting the welcome center is free, it does cost $5 to tour the museum, Danos told commissioners.

“We run our museum, but first and foremost, when they walk through that door, we see that they are entering the visitor center,” Danos said. “And so, if they decide to tour the museum, that’s a bonus for us. But if not, like I said, we still treat them equally and we welcome them to town. I think most people that come through, they end up talking to us for longer than they anticipated. And in many cases, they want to know what it’s like to live in Eureka Springs. So, we’re happy to answer that as well.”

The museum submits monthly visitor statistics to the CAPC, Danos said.

“We also put together an annual report where we actually detail where the families that come through, where they came from,” Danos said. “And also, we survey them on how they heard about Eureka Springs. So we have that information all broken down as well.”

The monthly $600 fee that the CAPC pays to the museum helps with paying staff and keeping the public restroom maintained, Danos said.

“I believe when we started off way back in 2001, it was $450 a month,” he said. “I don’t know exactly when that changed, but sometime around, at least by 2013, we were charging $600. So, that’s kind of where we’ve been for a while. And statistically, like I said, we do send all this information over.

“I don’t know how much of it you’ve seen as commissioners, but like last year, we had 6,723 visitors that came through. We surveyed over 700 families, and so that’s where we got that information about where those people came from and how they heard about Eureka Springs.”

Renewing the contract seemed to be a positive for the CAPC with the main questions coming from commissioner Robert Schmid regarding making sure materials available to visitors represented any business and wasn’t zeroed in on a select handful.

“I would think if the CAPC was willing to help us get the word out to the tax collectors that hey, this is a resource to let them know to please bring their cards to us. I mean, like I said, we will put anybody’s rack card in there,” Danos said. “… I know that when it comes to the CAPC, we’ve been very careful when we make recommendations and things like that, because I figure, well, we’re in a contract with the CAPC. You guys have to be unbiased. So do we. So yeah, so there is no restriction on the rack cards that come into the museum….”

While the museum building does have a visitors center sign outside, it was noted that it is a bit small. Danos acknowledged that and said different things have been looked into, including the possibility of painting a mural on the side of the building to help draw visitors’ attention.

MARKETING SUPPORT GUIDELINES The CAPC got an update, and then approved, the ongoing revamping of guidelines for requesting marketing support funds.

The changes includes a new application that makes it more clear for groups requesting funds, commissioners were told.

Specifically, the new guidelines now include “Legacy Events,” or events that happen annually that are longterm events that have positive financial impact on the city, the CAPC discussed.

The new guidelines include that applications can be filled out online or printed and submitted to the CAPC by mail, email or in person.

Any applications must be submitted at least 10 business days before the next scheduled CAPC meeting and approved at least 60 days before the planned event’s start date.

“At least one representative for each application must attend the Workshop and the appropriate CAPC meetings to be considered for approval,” the guidelines read. “At the CAPC meeting, each applicant will be allowed three minutes to present their application …” Applications will only be considered four times a year — February, May, August and November — according to the new rules.

HIGHWAY 62 CONCERNS Commissioner Heather Wilson said she has been approached by “three or more” business owners concerned that those along Highway 62 are underrepresented by the CAPC.

“… I think that it’s important that the community hears that we are receiving the feedback and we are discussing it,” Wilson said. “I have been approached by four or five now business owners of Highway 62 businesses who feel they’re underrepresented in CAPC promotional efforts. Some, not all of them, have said they’re down 20 to 30 percent. I know that this is partially attributable to the economy and broader things, but I do think when I go and audit, we don’t do a ton on 62. And I understand because downtown is very special. Lake Leatherwood, all of these things. But I would like for us to consider at our next workshop, thinking about maybe examining some strategies to increase representation of the Highway 62 businesses for the 2026 roadmap.”

Maloney said his office had just received information that shows visitation statistics for Highway 62 businesses.

“… I will tell you right now from the top 10 points of interest in Eureka Springs, No. 1, highway businesses on the southern part of Highway 62,” he said. “No. 2, highway businesses on the northern part of Highway 62, the first one being 18 percent of the visitation share. The second one being 15.8 percent of the visitation share. No. 3 was downtown. No. 4 was Lake Leatherwood. No. 5 was the Crescent … [Next] is Best Western Inn of the Ozarks, then the Great Passion Play… “No. 1 and No. 2 are Highway 62. And that represents 23 percent of the visitation share during the month of July. So, we have this information that is brand-new, it’s relative, it is important that you see this. …”

FINANCIAL REPORT

CAPC finance director Ty Reed said the CAPC had $1.5 million in cash in the bank as of July 31.

“For July, there was actual collections of $245,000 with a budget of $226,000,” he said. “Year-to-date, we’ve had just over a million in actual collections with a budget of $1.1 million.”

There was a net income for July of negative-$ 33,000 with a budget of $19,000, Reed said, adding that year-to-date it’s negative-$ 419,000 with a budget of $340,000.

“If you look on the collection spreadsheet, it shows a cumulative total of the year through June of $893,000 compared to $927,000 at this time last year and $896,000 the year before,” Reed said. “So, we’re comparable to 2023 and about $30,000 or so behind last year at this time.”

Commissioners noted that the list of past-due accounts has gotten smaller, helping the overall budget.

“The system is working,” Reed said.

DIRECTOR’S REPORT

New information of note from Maloney in his director’s report included a three-anda- half minute video produced by CAPC staff showing various convention and meeting spaces in the city.

“These are places that meetings and conventions have got a great opportunity to come to Eureka Springs, and these are some of the places that can be booked, reserved and created as a unique space for people from nearly all over the world,” Maloney said. “We’re going to be able to go ahead and use this as a showcase piece at the meetings … the team will be going to in the upcoming days in weeks and months. We’re kind of happy with the way it turned out, and again, if there’s a space out there that you have as a property in Eureka Springs and we don’t know about it, we need to know about because it will become a part of what we present to the public.”

REQUESTS APPROVED

The CAPC approved two funding requests.

The Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce was approved to receive $5,000 for the December holiday events, including the annual Christmas Parade of Lights.

The CAPC also approved $1,500 on a request from Charles Mowrey for the annual showing of “A Rocky Horror Picture Show” at The Auditorium.