Fourche Creek

Audubon and Partners Rally to Support Travel and Tourism on Fourche Creek

Tout Travel’s Impact, Celebrate Tourism, Float Fourche

Little Rock, Ark (May 1, 2017) — The Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau (LRCVB), Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism, Audubon Arkansas, Friends of Fourche Creek, and other partners will host a press event at 10:00 a.m., May 8, at Little Rock’s Benny Craig Park (4610 Gum Springs Road) to discuss the importance of tourism as the state’s second largest economic industry, and celebrate one of the city’s beautiful outdoor recreation amenities — Fourche Creek — with new directional signage unveiling, a new boat ramp ribbon-cutting, and guided canoe float tours. National Travel and Tourism Week (May 7-13) is an annual tradition for the travel community. Each year, Arkansas’s travel and hospitality leaders gather to publicly tout tourism’s vital role in the state’s economic well-being. In 2016, Arkansas welcomed nearly 30 million visitors who spent $7.6 billion dollars. Those expenditures accounted for $503 million dollars in local and state tax revenue. Pulaski County, primarily Little Rock, serves as the state’s largest tourism hub.

The LRCVB and Little Rock Parks and Recreation have created new directional signage to the creek’s primary entry points at Benny Craig Park and Interstate Park. And, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission recently used $53,000 dollars of its Marine Fuel Tax funds to complete a new boat ramp at Benny Craig Park that provides easy access for canoes, kayaks, and boats. This year, Fourche Creek serves as the travel rally’s backdrop and the LRCVB’s summer sweepstakes kick-off, ‘Urban Outdoor Adventures,’ featuring outdoor recreational opportunities in Arkansas’s capital city. Located in the heart of Little Rock, Fourche (pronounced “fush”) Creek, is one of the nation’s largest urban wetlands. It encompasses 1,800 acres filled with a highly diverse population of flora and fauna, more than 50 species of fish, migratory birds and three-hundred-year-old old bald cypress trees.

Fourche Creek - One of Arkansas’s most important watersheds, Fourche Creek captures approximately 73 percent of Little Rock’s drainage runoff and filtering as it flows into the Arkansas River. Audubon Arkansas, Friends of Fourche Creek volunteers, the City of Little Rock, and others have worked to clean up the creek through multiple community clean-ups and conservation efforts.

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