Hotels Across Green Country Booked For The PGA Championship In Tulsa

The PGA Championship is bringing 40,000 people a day to Southern Hills. Tulsa Tourism says the hotels are booked full from Oklahoma City all the way to Tahlequah to accommodate the event.

Lauren Rogers with Tulsa Tourism says the event is putting more than $140 million into Tulsa by way of hotels, food and general spending by the visitors.

Rogers says people have been booking hotel rooms for this week since the day the PGA announced it was coming to Tulsa and the rooms in the city filled up within just a couple of weeks.

According to Rogers, almost every hotel within a two-hour radius of Tulsa is completely booked, which is a rare occurrence. She said this has definitely happened before, but maybe only a handful of times.

Rogers said money was distributed to local hotels and restaurants to ensure they have enough staff to get everything done for the record-breaking crowds. With that money, they were able to hire more staff or offer more overtime to the current staffers. She said this incentive temporarily fixes the labor shortage seen across the area when it comes to hotel and restaurant staff. Rogers said every location should have enough staff to take care of the rooms and serve people quickly now.

“Senior PGA last year we did have a huge increase coming off the pandemic and needed a much-needed boost, but this is a whole other level, it’s the biggest boost in history pre or post-pandemic,” Rogers said.

Tulsa leaders say the Ironman Triathlon is also contributing to the influx of people in Tulsa this week.