Late spring and early summer are typically busy times when it comes to Emporia’s event schedule, and this year has been no different.
Emporia has seen record-setting participation with Unbound Gravel, as well as heavy attendance for the Pro Disc Golf Association Masters and Dynamic Discs Open disc golf tournaments. This week has the National Teachers Hall of Fame induction process and Emporia Pride overlapping. Next week has the Kansas Shrine Bowl.
Visit Emporia Director LeLan Dains says it’s important to have what he calls diversity in the event schedule.
That diversity has helped to drive Emporia’s transient guest tax receipts to record levels the past two years. The city of Emporia also recently increased the transient guest tax, also known as the hotel bed tax, from 7 percent to 8 percent. Dains says the May 2024 transient guest tax receipts were the highest in the history of Emporia tourism at $108,000, in part because of that rate increase. Dains says the Visit Emporia budget comes from those funds and gets used for marketing and communications, as well as investments in the Emporia Arts Center and Emporia Granada Theatre and specific events.
