MND BUSINESS REPORT

Miami, Grove Join New Three-State Tourism Alliance as Regional Marketing Effort Takes Shape

New regional partnership plans a print and digital tourism publication as questions remain about funding, ownership and revenue structure.

By Sean Gray | Miami News-Digest
MND Business Report | October 2026

MIAMI, Okla. — Miami and Grove have joined a new regional tourism and marketing alliance spanning northeast Oklahoma, southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas, an effort organizers say could give smaller communities and businesses a collective reach difficult to build individually.

The Tri-State Marketing & Tourism Alliance was announced in September by the McDonald County Chamber of Commerce in Missouri. Organizers said more than a dozen chambers, tourism offices and community organizations were participating at launch, with a combined network representing more than 5,000 businesses and more than 400,000 residents across the three states.

The Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau and Grove Area Chamber of Commerce are among the founding participants.

The alliance’s first major project is Ozarks 411, a planned print and digital publication focused on tourism, attractions, events and regional lifestyle content.

John Newby, president and CEO of the McDonald County Chamber, has described the alliance’s territory as stretching from the Pryor, Oklahoma, area east toward Branson, Missouri, north toward Joplin and Springfield, and south toward Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The strategy is built around scale.

Rather than having businesses and tourism organizations market separately in a series of small communities, the alliance aims to combine those audiences into a broader regional network. Organizers say participating businesses could gain access to regional advertising at prices substantially below what a comparable independent campaign might cost.

“Visitors don’t see state lines or county lines when they travel — they see destinations and experiences.”
— Amanda Davis, president, Grove Area Chamber of Commerce

The concept is to encourage visitors to move between destinations, remain in the region longer and spend money in multiple communities.

Miami tourism officials have presented the partnership in similar terms, emphasizing cooperation among smaller communities that might otherwise lack the marketing reach of larger destinations.

The alliance’s first publication could give that strategy a significant regional footprint.

Morgan Williams, executive director of the Cassville Area Chamber of Commerce in Missouri, told the Cassville Democrat that approximately 15,000 copies of Ozarks 411 are planned each quarter, or about 60,000 annually. A website and social-media presence also are planned.

If those circulation plans are realized, Ozarks 411 would operate on a scale considerably larger than a typical local chamber newsletter and could become a new regional advertising vehicle for businesses serving the Ozarks and surrounding communities.

Several details about the business structure behind the publication, however, have not been publicly disclosed.

The alliance announcement does not identify a separate legal owner or publisher of Ozarks 411, explain how advertising revenue will be distributed, state what participating organizations will contribute financially or detail how printing and distribution costs will be divided.

Miami’s Public-Tourism Role

Those questions take on additional significance in Miami because its Convention and Visitors Bureau is a city-created public body.

Under a City of Miami ordinance adopted in 2022, the CVB is a seven-member board subject to Oklahoma’s Open Meeting and Open Records acts. The board may make recommendations to the mayor, City Council and city manager concerning hotel-tax revenue and may work with regional organizations on tourism and marketing efforts.

The ordinance also limits the board’s independent financial authority. It does not give the CVB authority on its own to appropriate money, establish a budget, hire paid consultants or enter contractual agreements.

That means the CVB may participate in regional tourism planning, but the ordinance does not give it independent authority to commit city money to the alliance or its publication.

Miami’s tourism operation is supported in part by a 5% hotel tax.

City records show $204,020.09 in hotel-tax receipts during the 2024-25 reporting year. Through January of the 2025-26 reporting year, collections totaled $115,113.71.

Nothing in the public records reviewed establishes that Miami hotel-tax revenue has been committed to the Tri-State Marketing & Tourism Alliance or Ozarks 411.

Grove’s Structure Is Different

The founding participant identified by alliance organizers is the Grove Area Chamber of Commerce, a voluntary membership organization representing more than 300 businesses, organizations and individuals.

The City of Grove separately operates a Convention and Tourism Bureau responsible for promoting Grove and the Grand Lake area as a visitor destination.

There is some organizational overlap between the chamber and the city tourism operation. Grove Convention and Tourism Bureau Director Brent Malone serves as an ex-officio member of the Grove Area Chamber board representing the tourism bureau, while a City of Grove representative also serves on the chamber board.

Grove’s approved 2026-27 Tourism Bureau budget totals $475,600. The budget anticipates $170,000 in hotel and motel tax revenue and a $109,400 transfer from the city’s general fund.

The tourism budget includes $49,000 for marketing and advertising, including $3,000 for magazine advertising and $5,000 for broadly designated marketing opportunities.

The budget does not identify the Tri-State Marketing & Tourism Alliance or Ozarks 411 by name, and no record reviewed establishes that those city tourism funds have been committed to the project.

The distinction is important: The Grove Area Chamber, rather than the city tourism bureau, is the organization publicly identified as a founding participant in the alliance.

Three States — Not Yet Four

The alliance also stops short, at least for now, of encompassing the full Four-State region traditionally associated with northeast Oklahoma and the Joplin area.

All of the founding participants publicly identified by organizers are located in Oklahoma, Missouri or Arkansas. No southeast Kansas chamber or tourism organization appears on the published founding list.

Organizers have described the alliance specifically as a partnership among communities in northeast Oklahoma, southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas.

Newby has said nearly 40 communities expressed interest as the alliance was being organized and that additional chambers, Main Street programs and communities could participate, leaving open the possibility that the network could expand farther into the region.

A Regional Business Story Still Developing

For Miami, Grove and other smaller communities, the economic-development premise is straightforward: combine numerous local tourism markets into a larger regional audience capable of supporting broader promotion and advertising.

The unanswered questions are largely financial and organizational.

How much participating organizations will contribute, whether additional public tourism money will eventually be involved, who will legally own and publish Ozarks 411, how advertising proceeds will be distributed and how the planned circulation will be carried out remain among the details that will determine whether the alliance develops primarily as a cooperative tourism campaign, a regional publishing venture or a combination of the two.

For now, its creation represents an ambitious effort to market smaller communities across the three-state Ozarks region as a single interconnected destination.

Reporting note: Miami News-Digest reviewed alliance announcements, municipal tourism records, city budget documents and publicly available organizational information in preparing this report. Statements concerning projected reach and circulation are attributed to alliance participants and have not yet been independently established through completed circulation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean Gray is the founder and editor of Miami News-Digest, covering regional business, government, public records, economic development and community affairs across northeast Oklahoma and the Four-State region.

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