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Tourism director seeks $41M first-year investment for eight‑year deferred maintenance plan, urges larger promotion budget
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Summary
Tourism director Sterling Shirley presented an eight‑year, $316 million deferred maintenance plan for state parks and requested $41 million for year one to address priority repairs, while also urging an increase in promotional apportionment and previewing new reservation and analytics tools.
Sterling Shirley, interim director of the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation, told the subcommittee the agency is responsible for 38 state parks, six lodges, nine travel information centers and other assets and presented an eight‑year, $316 million deferred maintenance plan. Shirley said the department is requesting $41 million in the first year to address health‑and‑safety and critical repairs across the system.
Shirley highlighted recent accomplishments including launch of a new reservation platform (Spirit) and a “geofencing” analytics project that will provide visitation heat maps and origin/demographic data for park users. "This will be very interesting for us to use for marketing strategies going forward," a staff member explained; the system is intended to help officials prioritize facility repairs and target marketing.
The department said it used about $12.5 million of OCAMP (Ocamp) one‑time money and a $6.2 million component for cabin projects at Lake Murray together with a federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) reimbursement strategy; Shirley said that leveraging federal LWCF reimbursements (50% in their example) can stretch state dollars.
Shirley asked the committee to consider $41 million in year‑one capital to fund high‑priority health, safety and infrastructure work and described the Sites/Asset assessment delivered by an engineering firm (Terracon) to inventory building lifespans and prioritize projects. He also urged the committee to consider restoration of promotional apportionment levels (currently $5.75M) and noted that neighboring states spend far more on tourism promotion; Shirley cited an ROI on marketing dollars and urged more stakeholder collaboration to boost visitation ahead of several regional events and travel opportunities.
Committee members asked about the geofencing vendor, privacy protections, procurement and the department’s partnerships with county tourism groups and tribal entities. Shirley said privacy protections are in place, the vendor is U.S.-based, and the geofencing data will be used internally to produce dashboards for planning and marketing. The hearing included a discussion about how to prioritize repairs and whether to retire underused group camp facilities or convert them to smaller rentable cabins. No formal votes were taken during the hearing.
