Longtime Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison is set to retire at the end of the year. Arrison, who has served as CEO for 27 years, described the transition as “bittersweet.”
“I’d like to do something else for a year or two before I totally take it to the house and sit on the porch and watch the boats float by, but you know, I feel good about it,” he said. “I think the timing’s good. We have plenty of time for the commission to find somebody to take my place and have a smooth transition.”
During his tenure, Arrison has helped with two expansions to the Hot Springs Convention Center, the opening of the Northwoods Trail System and the opening of Majestic Park. Before leaving, he said, he would like to see the completion of the planned sports complex at a former mine site south of the city.
“It’d be nice to get that done, and if we don’t, we just really need some kind of soccer fields in our community,” he said. “I’d like to help with that before I move on to whatever my next job is going to be.”
Arrison worked in hotels and served as CEO of the Pine Bluff Convention & Visitors Bureau before joining Visit Hot Springs in 1998. He said he expects his next job to be related to hospitality in some way.
He advised his successor to listen to the wishes of the community.
“Listen to the people of Hot Springs,” he said. “I think some of the best ideas that our team ever came up with was from people just calling and telling us, ‘Hey, have you thought about this?’”
