It's a Great Week in Hot Springs, AR

It's a great week this week in Hot Springs. The spring weather is here with temperatures in the 70s, the Bradford Pear trees are blooming, the lake levels are back to normal, and the streets are packed with tourists in town for the horse races. You can feel the excitement!

On top of all this great news, our local Chamber of Commerce made the headlines in the local newspaper with their very positive reports on statistics. Here's some of the information that they reported earlier this week:

• Arkansas's unemployment rate is currently 6.4% - much better than the national average at 8.1%
  
  
• Hot Springs unemployment rate is 5.9% - even better than the state & national average, and also improved from Hot Springs' rate 5 years ago at 6.4%
  
  
• Hot Springs experienced a 28% growth in per capita income since 2004. This is the highest percentage growth in Arkansas.
  
  
• Arkansas experienced a 3.8% increase in tourism in 2008, & a portion of that increase can be attributed to Hot Springs, which saw a 1.54% increase in hospitality tax collections.
  
  
• As a major contributor to the tourism sector of Hot Springs, the Oaklawn Horse Racing Track is seeing higher attendance than virtually ever other race track in the country. Attendance at every race track in the U.S. is down by an average of 30%, while "Oaklawn" is up 2% over last year in attendance and bets made.
  
  
• Home prices in Hot Springs fell only 0.35%, while Arkansas reported an 8.3% decrease. Home values are holding in Hot Springs.

In addition, we are also pleased to report that our web site: www.BestofHotSprings.com is booming with hits. We are now averaging 55,000 hits/month over our last year's average at 35,000 hits/month. This tells us that we have more interested buyers out there.

So let's turn the TVs off and get out & enjoy some wonderful Hot Springs.