Tourism in Omaha, Nebraska, United States offers visitors history, sports, nature and cultural experiences. Its principal tourist attractions are the Henry Doorly Zoo and the College World Series (CWS). A 2003 study by a Creighton University economist estimated that the CWS added $33.8 million to the city's economy that year.Thompson, J. (2007) "Skeptics of stadium look for return on funding" , Omaha World-Herald. October 15. Retrieved 5/2/08. With 1.1 million visitors annually, the Henry Doorly Zoo is Nebraska's most popular tourist attraction."Desert Dome: Dean of the Dome" , NET: Nebraska's NPR and PBS stations. Retrieved 5/2/08. In 2007 Omaha hosted the USA Roller Sports National Championships,Patterson, M. (2007) "Roller Skating: Competitors are tops on wheels" , Omaha World-Herald. July 17. Retrieved 5/2/08. along with 10,000 people who auditioned for the American Idol television show at Qwest Center Omaha.Beals, J. "Omaha Attractions", Omaha City Weekly. Retrieved 5/2/08.
Research on per capita spending on leisure and hospitality situates Omaha in the same tier as the neighboring cities of Topeka, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Denver, Colorado.Goss and Associates. (2007) The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Performing Arts on the City of Omaha. Hollard Foundation. p. 14. Retrieved 5/2/08. In 2002 the United States Conference of Mayors ranked Omaha 70th out of the top 100 cities for tourism in the United States.Note: Based on Gross Metro Product. (2002) The Role of Travel and Tourism in America's Top 100 Metropolitan Areas. United States Conference of Mayors. Retrieved 5/2/08.
Background
Omaha has been a tourist destination for many years. Famous early visitors included as Rudyard Kipling and General George Crook, who stayed at pioneer institutions such as the Douglas House, Cozzens Hotel and the original Paxton Hotel in the city's early years.Bristow, D. (2002) A Dirty, Wicked Town: Omaha in the 19th Century. Caxton Press. p 219. The Omaha Driving Park hosted the first official performance of the Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, with eight thousand attendees., Nebraska State Historical Society. Retrieved 4/19/08. In 1898 the city hosted more than 1,000,000 visitors from across the United States at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, a world's fair that lasted for more than half the year.Beam, P.K. (1994) "The Last Victorian Fair: The Trans-Mississippi International Exposition." Journal of the West. 33:1. pp 10–23.
Attractions The most popular tourist attraction in Omaha is the Henry Doorly Zoo. In May 2004, it was voted by Reader's Digest as the best zoo in America, with the largest cat complex in North America."America's 100 Best: The 2004 List." Google.com cache. Retrieved 5/8/08."Best of America: Best Zoo", Reader's Digest. Retrieved 5/8/08. Also, in a survey conducted by Disney-owned Family Fun Magazine, the zoo was ranked as "America's #1 Family Friendly Attraction."(2006) Family Fun Magazine. (September–October). Fun-Plex and the Heartland of America Park provide other outdoor settings, while other important attractions include the Joslyn Art Museum, Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium baseball field, Omaha Children's Museum, and the historic Old Market arts and entertainment district. TD Ameritrade Park opens downtown in 2011. The Westroads, Crossroads, Village Pointe and Oakview Malls offer a wide variety of shopping, while the Qwest Center Omaha is a vast multipurpose facility.
Culture
Omaha is home to a variety of cultural attractions. Research shows Omaha surpasses (in cultural and performing arts per capita) neighboring Des Moines, Oklahoma City, Topeka, Tulsa and Wichita for its cultural attractions, while lagging behind Denver, Kansas City and Minneapolis, Minnesota for cultural attractions, in turn .Goss and Associates. (2007) p. 16.
The Creighton Orpheum Theater is a performing arts center located in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. The home of the "Broadway In Omaha" series and Opera Omaha, the theater has hosted a variety of performers, including W.C. Fields, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Al Jolson. Omaha's Union Station plays host to the Durham Western Heritage Museum. Dedicated to preserving and displaying the history of the Western United States, it features the history of Omaha, as well as a variety of special collections including the Byron Reed Collection. El Museo Latino in South Omaha and the Dreamland Ballroom are cultural bookmarks in the city's most diverse communities, while events such as Native Omaha Days, the Festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Day of the Dead and many other holidays celebrate the city's broad racial and ethnic roots.Arbelaez, M. (2006) Religion and Community: Mexican Americans in South Omaha (1900–1980). OLLAS Special Report No. 4. Omaha, NE: Office of Latino/Latin American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
The Toddler Farm at the Omaha Children's Museum gives children 4 and younger a place for imagination, while creative arts and dress up areas are for younger children as well. A hands-on science gallery and television studio and traveling exhibits are designed to help children discover how the world works and learn through play. The principal fine arts museum in the state of Nebraska is located in Omaha. The Joslyn Art Museum, opened in 1931, is the only museum in Nebraska with a comprehensive permanent collection that includes works from antiquity to the present day. Highlights include works by Lorenzo di Credi, El Greco, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Albert Bierstadt, and Thomas Hart Benton along with American masters Grant Wood, Jackson Pollock, Dale Chihuly and George Segal. The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts features three galleries, including studio space and housing for artists chosen from applicants all over the world.
Omaha has a thriving performing arts community that includes the Magic Theatre, a 40-year-old experimental theatre, along with Astro Theatre, which hosts the Emmy Gifford Children's Theater."The Rose" , Rose Theater. Retrieved 12/2/07. The Holland Performing Arts Center was built in 2005 with the overwhelming support and generosity of the Omaha community. The Holland Center specializes in events requiring a more acoustical environment, including performances by the Omaha Symphony."Holland Performing Arts Center", Omaha Performing Arts. Retrieved 4/30/08.
According to the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, other notable cultural attractions in Omaha include the Artists Cooperative Gallery, Czechoslovak Museum, Loves Jazz and Arts Center, Lozier IMAX Theater, Omaha Community Playhouse and the historic Orpheum Theater.Nebraska Department of Economic Development. (2005) "Attendance at Selected Nebraska Attractions". Retrieved 5/2/08.
Sports
TD Ameritrade Park became the new home of the annual College World Series, known as the CWS in 2011. The Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium was a baseball stadium that formerly served as the home of the CWS. In the event eight out of 250 college teams from across the US have come to Omaha since 1950 to compete, bringing much of Omaha's population out to support them. In 2003 a Creighton University analysis found that 48.5 percent of CWS attendees were from outside Nebraska and that 7.4 percent were Nebraskans from outside Omaha. That year visitors to the tournament spent more than $22 million directly in the metropolitan area, generating more than $2.3 million in local and state taxes.Thompson, J. (2007) After being threatened with the loss of the event in 2007, the city recently signed an agreement to keep the event in Omaha past 2010 by building a new stadium in the city's NoDo neighborhood."Deal will keep College World Series in Omaha past 2010", Associated Press. Retrieved 5/2/08.
Built in 2011, Werner Park is the new home to the AAA Omaha Storm Chasers baseball team. Rosenblatt Stadium was home to the minor league Omaha Royals until 2010. Across the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa is the Mid-America Center, an arena and convention center.
The Omaha Civic Auditorium is a multi-purpose convention center seats up to 9,300 people for sporting events and up to 10,960 for concerts. Events at the Civic include sporting events, concerts, car and boat shows, trade shows, concerts, smaller conventions, local graduations, dog shows and craft shows. The current home to the Omaha Beef indoor football team, it also hosts the Creighton University women's basketball and volleyball teams. In 2007 the facility hosted the USA Roller Sports National Championships.Patterson, M. (2007). CenturyLink Center Omaha is an arena and convention center including an 18,300-seat arena, a exhibition hall and of meeting space. It hosts basketball games, hockey games and concerts, as well as the annual shareholder meeting for Berkshire Hathaway.Was torn down in late 2016.
History
Founded in 1854, Omaha has a rich historical legacy present throughout the city today. Tourism has always been important to the city, with famous visitors such as Rudyard Kipling and General George Crook staying there in the city's early years.Bristow, D. (2002) A Dirty, Wicked Town: Omaha in the 19th Century. Caxton Press. p 219. The Omaha Driving Park hosted the first official performance of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1883, with eight thousand attendees. In 1898 the city hosted more than 1,000,000 visitors from across the United States at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, a world's fair that lasted for more than half the year.
With a downtown core where the city was settled, the city's Old Market Historic District is a haven to tourists and locals alike. The Old Market is abutted with the Omaha Rail and Commerce Historic District as well as the Omaha Warehouses MPS, each with several notable buildings. Downtown Omaha was also home of the Jobbers Canyon Historic District, where many of the important outposts and settlements along with Oregon Trail west of Omaha were outfitted.
60,000 to 80,000 tourists visit the Mormon Trail Center and the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery in the Florence neighborhood every year."Vibrant master plan unveiled for historic Florence", Omaha Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved 4/30/08. The north side of Omaha boasts a long history of peaks and lows. This area of town includes the Fort Omaha Historic District, an 1878 U.S. Army post on the western frontier, as well as several historic neighborhoods essential to the city's growth and development.
Other notable historic attractions in Omaha include the General Crook House at Fort Omaha, Boys Town, Florence Mill, Gerald R. Ford Birthsite and Gardens, Joslyn Castle, Lewis and Clark Landing, Malcolm X Birthsite, Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters, Nebraska Jewish Historical Society and Riekes Museum, The Rose Theater, and Freedom Park, home to the USS Hazard and the USS Marlin, both World War II-era vessels.Nebraska Department of Economic Development. (2005).Victor, C. (2003) "Omaha: seen the city? Then head on out for the following attractions." Travel America. May–June, 2003. p 29.
Nature
Omaha is home to dozens of public parks, several with highlights for tourists. The Heartland of America Park is a Downtown Omaha feature that includes a fountain and gondola rides on a lake with two fountains, with one that shoots water into the air during a colorful nighttime light show. Omaha's Lauritzen Gardens is a botanical garden features a holiday poinsettia show in December. Other popular parks in the city include Dodge Park, Glenn Cunningham Lake, the Gene Leahy Mall, and the lakes in the Lower Papio Valley. The city also has more than of recreational trails for biking, running, hiking and strolling, and the soon-to-be-completed Missouri River Pedestrian Bridge, which will be the crown jewel of the city's trail system."Missouri River trail bridge links Omaha and Council Bluffs", AmericanTrails.org. Retrieved 5/2/08.