The Tulsa City Council voted on July 22, 2026, to send to voters a proposal increasing the city’s hotel excise tax for tourists from the current 5% to 9.9%. If approved, this would be Tulsa’s first hotel tax increase since 1984.
Funding for Event Centers and Tourism
The additional tax revenue would primarily be used to fund maintenance and interior repairs at the BOK Center and Arvest Convention Center, with projects slated to begin in January of the following year. Tulsa’s tourism department, administered by Visit Tulsa, is currently understaffed and underfunded, limiting its ability to recruit artists and conferences that bring visitors to the city.
Renee McKenney, President of Visit Tulsa, said, “For us, this is a big day in that we want to really make sure that we can take our guest money as they come in and re-invest that into our city. Those ways, we invest to keep up at the BOK (Center) and the Arvest Convention Center. And then it also makes a great place for Tulsans all around.”
Impact on Tourists and Tourism Competition
Tourists staying in Tulsa hotels would face higher accommodation taxes if the measure passes. Councilor Anthony Archie stressed that the tourism department’s lack of resources has contributed to the loss of arts and
conference acts to competing cities such as Dallas and Kansas City.
Archie said, “The reason why many of those (artist) acts and conferences come to Tulsa is because Visit Tulsa goes out and recruits many of those folks. What we see is, we have underfunded our tourism department. They are understaffed. And if we gave them the resources that we needed, we would be able to continue to bring in some of those acts that we are losing to Dallas or Kansas City.”
Additional City Council Appropriations
Besides approving the hotel tax increase measure for the ballot, the Tulsa City Council authorized funding on
July 22, 2026, including $1 million for the 1921 Race Massacre Graves Investigation and more than $500,000 for maintenance of Route 66 and city welcome signs. A decision on allocating $1 million to the unopened OK Pop Museum is scheduled for a council vote on July 29, 2026.
