Looking back on the year that was 2022, it’s easy to see that northeast Oklahoma is moving forward. You might even say…our region is accelerating.
With the continued support of our members, regional communities and tribal partners, the Tulsa Regional Chamber fueled that acceleration in the areas of economic development, tourism, government affairs and community development. Here’s a closer look at the successes we saw in each of these areas during 2022.
Economic Development
In the last two decades, downtown Tulsa and its regional communities have seen record-breaking development. Northeast Oklahoma continues to invest in itself with projects like the 222 N. Detroit building, the under-construction Santa Fe Square, and the development in downtown Jenks and along Route 66, to name just a few.
To continue to move our region forward, we must work together to build the region we want to see in the next decade, and a lot of that work is done through Tulsa’s Future, the Chamber-led regional economic development partnership that works with the City of Tulsa, hundreds of private investors, and regional and tribal partners to bring transformational investment to the Tulsa region.
Since its inception in 2005, Tulsa’s Future has generated more than 72,500 jobs and more than $4.25 billion in capital investment. Additionally, more than 200 public and private investors have supported Tulsa’s Future during the last 17 years.
Tulsa’s Future has seen continued involvement from the region’s business community, regional partners and tribal partners and look forward to building upon its success in the coming year. In 2021, economic development efforts focused on post-pandemic economic recovery, which was supported through Tulsa’s Future: Road to Recovery, a one-year-strategic work plan. This past year saw the launch of a new multi-year economic development strategy, Tulsa’s Future: Acceleration, which focuses on accentuating our existing industry strengths and capitalizing on emerging trends.
During 2022, Chamber staff and volunteer leadership met with the business community to outline the Tulsa’s Future: Acceleration strategic plan and fundraise. As announced at the Chamber’s State of the Economy event in December, 133 companies and regional and tribal partners have pledged more than $3.1 million in annual commitments to support Tulsa’s Future: Acceleration and bolster the region’s economic development activity.
In its first year, Tulsa’s Future: Acceleration celebrated several wins, including multiple headquarter relocations. These wins include ClearSign Technologies’ move from Seattle; aerospace company Air Transport Components’ relocation from the Phoenix area; Milo’s Tea Company, an Alabama-based beverage manufacturer, investing an additional $20 million at its local production facility; Hayden Industrial, a California-based manufacturer, expanding its operations to Tulsa; and financial services company Compu-Link locating at Eastgate Metroplex.
Also in 2022, a Tulsa coalition was announced as one of 21 winners of the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge. The $38.2 million grant will accelerate local research, development and production in the advanced aerial mobility industry. The coalition was led by INCOG and partners included Tulsa Innovation Labs, Tulsa Ports, the City of Tulsa, Partner Tulsa, Oklahoma State University, Osage LLC and the Tulsa Regional Chamber.
For the second year in a row, in 2022 the Tulsa Regional Chamber was recognized as a top economic development organization by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). IEDC is the largest association for professional economic developers in the world. Their annual Excellence in Economic Development Awards recognize the world’s best economic development programs and partnerships. IEDC recognizes organizations that demonstrate long-term strategic planning and significant community impact and innovation. They consider the work of Tulsa’s Future – the Chamber-led regional economic development partnership – to be among the best in the world.
These successes would not be possible without the strong support of our regional business community, regional and tribal partners and the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. Thank you to the numerous Tulsa’s Future investors that are helping us drive regional economic prosperity.
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Tourism
Our region also accelerated in tourism, with 2022 distinguishing itself as Tulsa’s largest tourism year ever. Thanks to world class attractions like Philbrook Museum and state-of-the-art Greenwood Rising Black Wall Street history center – as well as major sporting events such as the Certified Piedmontese IRONMAN Tulsa and annual USA BMX Grand Nationals – tourism is a major economic driver for our city.
For example, the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club generated a total estimated economic impact of nearly $158 million, making it the largest single event in local history.
According to Oxford Economics, 7.2 million people are visiting Tulsa annually and spending $1.2 billion, generating a total economic impact of $1.7 billion. Local tourism supports more than 14,700 jobs in Tulsa, and the $479 million in total income sustained by tourism is the equivalent of $2,900 for every household in Tulsa. Additionally, the state and local taxes sustained by tourism offsets $550 in taxes for each household in our city.
These numbers reflect the hard work of Tulsa Regional Tourism – the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s destination marketing organization – to attract visitors to our city. Tulsa’s value as a major tourism destination was on the rise during 2022 thanks to the increase of visit-worthy offerings within our region.
The highly anticipated Bob Dylan Center® opened in May of 2022, luring fans of all ages from around the world. Tulsa also continues solidifying the “Capital of Route 66” moniker with publications like Thrillist and USA Today citing historic highlights on our 28-mile stretch of the Mother Road like Oklahoma’s first food hall Mother Road Market and Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios. Additionally, experts at CNN Travel named Tulsa as a top place to travel in the world in 2022, and Tulsa’s already on Good Housekeeping’s list of cities to visit.
The cycle of economic success from the Tulsa region’s tourism industry is strong and growing stronger. Thanks to the hard work of Tulsa Regional Tourism staff, board members, volunteers and investors, we have gained distinction as a welcoming city for diverse events and visitors.
Housed at the Tulsa Regional Chamber, Tulsa Regional Tourism is an umbrella organization that includes Visit Tulsa, the leisure marketing leg; the Tulsa Convention & Visitors Bureau (Tulsa CVB); the Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts & Culture (Tulsa FMAC), an accredited film commission; and the Tulsa Sports Commission, which markets Tulsa as a destination for pro and amateur sports.
Tulsa Regional Tourism assists in the community’s bidding for, and hosting of, signature events such as NCAA Division I men’s basketball, NCAA Division I and the Big 12 Wrestling Championships, USA BMX Grand Nationals, the PGA and Senior PGA Championships, the Arabian Horse Association’s U.S. Nationals, the Pinto Horse Association World Championship Show, the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals indoor car racing, the SeneGence International Evolve Seminar, and many more events and conferences.
For the fiscal year from July 2021 to June 2022, the total economic impact of the conferences and events our city hosted was $359 million. More than 231,000 hotel room nights were booked along the way. Tulsa Regional Tourism brought in 316 event leads to the region against a goal of 260.
Beyond sports and large conferences, Tulsa is also gaining a reputation as a hub for creativity of all types, including music, film and the visual arts. The Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts & Culture (Tulsa FMAC) supported more than 1,600 live music performances and nearly 50 other music projects in Tulsa County using American Rescue Plan Act funding. Tulsa FMAC also helped Tulsa host the 11th global edition of the Music Cities Convention, the world’s largest event exploring the importance of music in city development.
Tulsa assisted in 28 film and television productions during 2022. One of those was the new Sylvester Stallone TV series “Tulsa King,” which has generated nearly a billion dollars’ worth of free publicity for our community and has already been renewed for a second season.
In fact, Tulsa continues to make MovieMaker Magazine’s Best Cities to Live and Work as a Moviemaker, reaching #5 on the list of Small Cities and Towns in 2022 and elevating to the large cities category for the first time in 2023 at #19 of the top 25 in North America.
The Chamber’s work in tourism was honored in 2022. Two Tulsa Sports Commission events – the 2022 USA BMX Legacy Nationals and the 2022 PGA Championship – were named Champions of Economic Impact in Sports Tourism by Sports Destination Management, which is the leading publication with the largest circulation of sports event planners and tournament directors in the sports tourism market. The 2022 USA BMX Legacy Nationals was recognized for innovations in sports tourism, and the 2022 PGA Championship was honored for its record-breaking impact as a large market event.
Awards like this recognize that Tulsa is a world-class sports destination with state-of-the-art facilities and attractions, and that our community embraces events from a wide variety of sports.
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Government Affairs
For the past several years, the Tulsa Regional Chamber has advocated for increasing the number of direct flights through the OneVoice Regional Legislative Agenda. In 2022 American Airlines started new nonstop service from Tulsa to New York City’s LaGuardia Airport. This is Tulsa International Airport’s first direct flight to New York City, and is American’s ninth nonstop destination served from Tulsa, along with Austin, Charlotte, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. Having direct flight access to major markets supports the Tulsa-area business community, aids in business attraction efforts and increases the number of visitors to our region.
2022 saw the opening of the Gilcrease Expressway extension, which was a longtime OneVoice Regional Legislative Agenda priority and shows the immense impact that can come from cooperation between the regional business community, government agencies and elected officials.
Beyond the Gilcrease Expressway, acceleration was felt across our region through progress on a variety of other projects, including the new Gilcrease Museum, River Parks, Zink Dam and the new Williams Crossing Arkansas River pedestrian bridge.
The state legislature passed a measure to fund large scale economic development projects with incentives of up to $1 billion, and Gov. Kevin Stitt signed it into law. This measure creates a performance-based rebate for large employers as they create jobs in our state. This incentive is an answer to similar mega-project legislation that has been signed into law in surrounding states and will make Oklahoma more competitive when pursuing economic development projects. The incentive package will pay dividends for years to come by helping Tulsa’s Future, the Chamber-led regional economic development partnership, continue to attract new businesses and new jobs to our state.
Legislation also passed to establish the Oklahoma Route 66 Commission and the Oklahoma Route 66 Commission Revolving Fund, which will designate monies for approved projects to preserve and develop Route 66.
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Community Development
Of course, acceleration requires energy, and the Chamber dedicated significant energy in 2022 to accelerating individual opportunity within our community.
In 2022, the Tulsa’s NextGEN Talent (TNT) externship experience completed its second annual cohort. During the course of three weeks, nearly 30 Black juniors and seniors from five school districts (TPS, Union, Jenks, Owasso and Broken Arrow) connected with local employers across a variety of industries for career exploration and professional development. An additional eight students from TNT’s inaugural 2021 cohort returned to mentor the 2022 externs. Along with the 15 businesses that hosted students in 2022, an additional 25 organizations provided meals, books and speakers for quality professional development. Grants from Williams and Walmart helped fund the programming. Formed in partnership with Oklahoma Sen. Kevin Matthews and Tulsa Public Schools in 2021, TNT ensures a bright, diverse group of students are connected to business leaders and career opportunities in Tulsa before they leave for college.
Street Cred, one of the largest and most anticipated annual events from Tulsa’s Young Professionals (TYPROS), is designed to reimagine under-used spaces. In 2022, this family-friendly event transformed an historic warehouse in the Crutchfield neighborhood of Tulsa into a pop-up market with programming, including a community resource fair, food trucks, movie night, and performances.
TYPROS also successfully wrapped up its second year of 918 Lead, the nonpartisan boot camp to prepare young Tulsans for public office. Through 918 Lead, TYPROS seeks to create a pipeline of informed and engaged young Tulsans who will become leaders in our region and beyond. The program included information about the roles and responsibilities of various levels of government, a firsthand look at the challenges and opportunities of serving in public office, and insight into the skills needed to run a campaign.
As the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s coalition of companies and nonprofit partners committed to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), Mosaic helps educate, lead and influence businesses on creating diverse workforces and inclusive workplaces to enhance their competitive advantage.
Taken annually by dozens of Tulsa-area companies and organizations, the Mosaic Inclusive Workplace Index quantifies the region’s progress toward inclusivity and equity. The index results provide both macro-level insights and tailored feedback for participants to help them improve their own DEI efforts. A number of encouraging insights came from the 2022 index. Of those organizations participating in the index:
The Tulsa Regional Chamber was honored to host representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for a conversation with Black business owners and entrepreneurs on Tulsa's Black Wall Street. The dialogue included discussion of the horrific events of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, what was done leading up to last year’s centennial commemoration of that event, the challenges our community continues to face, and how Tulsa is addressing those challenges through projects such as Oasis Fresh Market.
More than 100 business and community leaders spent three days in Denver for the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s 2022 Intercity Visit. This year’s trip covered a variety of topics, including visionary leadership, community investments, the changing nature of downtowns, college-educated workforce and business attraction, community building, mental health and homelessness, and regional collaboration.
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The Road Ahead
Acceleration is far more than just moving forward. Acceleration is moving forward with purpose, direction and speed. And that sounds a lot like Tulsa throughout 2022.
There’s every reason to expect that the Tulsa region’s acceleration in the areas of job growth, tourism and community building will continue well into the future. The continued investment of Chamber members helps make regional acceleration a reality.
And as if all of this were not enough, the Chamber earned one additional distinction during 2022: five-star reaccreditation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business organization. The U.S. Chamber’s Accreditation Program facilitates continuing excellence in the chamber industry. Accreditation with the U.S. Chamber is a prestigious honor that distinguishes the high quality, expertise, and strong leadership displayed by accredited state and local chambers of commerce. Accreditation is good for five years, and the Tulsa Regional Chamber had previously been five-star accredited in 2017.
In order to receive accreditation, a chamber must meet minimum standards in their operations and programs, including areas of governance, government affairs, communications, and technology. To receive five-star accreditation, a chamber must meet all minimum requirements plus 90 to 100 percent of rigorous additional criteria. The Tulsa Regional Chamber scored 117 out of a possible 117 points on its reaccreditation application.
As your partner in prosperity, the Tulsa Regional Chamber looks back proudly at all our region collaboratively accomplished during 2022.
And with continued acceleration, just imagine how far we’ll go…