Rob Phillips is hoping a cowboy will ride in and save the Lawrence lodging industry. Or at least give it a shot in the arm.

Phillips, general manager of the Eldridge Hotel, has turned to his hero, the American cowboy, as a way to boost business at the downtown hotel. He’s also convinced several other Lawrence hotels to try to tap into the growing “cowboy tourism” market by co-hosting a “weekend cowboy gathering” in mid-Janaury.

Beginning Wednesday, the Eldridge will hold the first of four “Flying E Christmas Chuckwagon Suppers.” The event features a cowboy-style meal of brisket, beans and other fixings along with a cowboy band.

Based on the response the hotel had to a “cowboy steak night” it had last month, Phillips is predicting each of the four Wednesday evening events will draw 100 people, paying $25 a seat, to the hotel’s restaurant. On a typical Wednesday evening, the restaurant usually draws fewer than 10 people, Phillips said.

“I’m looking for every way to draw more people to dine and stay at the Eldridge Hotel, and I think this might be a good one,” Phillips said. “If we can sell out four Wednesdays a month, that’s an extra $10,000 and that would be a good boost to our business.”

Phillips estimated the slowdown in the national economy had cut Lawrence’s lodging business by 20 percent to 30 percent during the past year.

He said that’s why other Lawrence hotels are saddling up to the idea of tapping into the growing market of tourists who are interested in a cowboy experience. Five other Lawrence hotels – the Lawrence Holidome, Holiday Inn Express, SpringHill Suites by Marriott, the Hampton Inn, and the Days Inn, have joined the Eldridge in sponsoring the first “Lawrence Cowboy Winter Gathering” Jan 17-18.

The event will feature a Liberty Hall concert by The Sons of the San Joaquin and a trade show at the Lawrence Holidome with vendors selling items such as saddles, hats, clothing and western art.

Phillips said organizers are hoping the event initially draws 3,000 to 4,000 visitors and ultimately will attract enough out-of-town visitors to fill the city’s 1,200 hotel rooms.

“Hotel managers have been meeting for quite awhile to try and come up with ideas to fill our slow times and our slow months, and January is definitely the industry’s slowest month of the year here,” Phillips said.

Cowboys in Lawrence?

But is Lawrence a cowtown? After all, most state residents would agree Lawrence’s image and the image of, say, Dodge City aren’t exactly the same.

Phillips isn’t concerned Lawrence’s urban ways will sink the venture. He said Lawrence has plenty of old west history to share with people.

Lawrence historian Steve Jansen will give a 15-minute history lesson at all of the events, telling people about Wild Bill Hickok’s stays in Lawrence during the Civil War, Buffalo Bill Cody buying horses near Bismark Grove, and Lawrence visits by John Wayne, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, who came to Lawrence for the world premiere of “Dark Command,” a 1940 movie about Quantrill’s raid.

“I think people will be shocked by how much cowboy history we have here,” Phillips said.

He also said he thinks the events will fill an unmet niche in the area’s entertainment market.

“If you are 50 years old and in Lawrence, Kansas, and want to see some entertainment that brings back memories of your youth, what do you do?” Phillips said. “That’s what this will do. It will appeal to a lot of people, but especially those people who grew up in a time when good guys wore white hats and bad guys wore black hats, and life was that simple.”

Wichita success

But Phillips said the main reason he thinks the idea will work is because it is working elsewhere. Phillips said he decided to give the idea a try after seeing the success of a Wichita-area business called the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Suppers.

The Prairie Rose operates on the same concept, only on a larger scale. The Butler County business has a dinner show on average three nights a week, and sells out most of their $25 a night seats.

Cheryl Etheredge, said she and her husband, Thomas, started the business in 1999 and served 3,500 meals that first year. This year, the business will serve well more than 50,000 meals, she said.

“A Wichita restaurant that draws 50,000 people a year would be considered successful, but we’re doing it in the middle of a pasture in Butler County,” Cheryl Etheredge said. “I think that shows how popular the idea is.”

And Phillips thinks Lawrence may have something the Butler County area doesn’t have: a million people in a metro area just a half-hour away.

“One of the big reasons we think this will be successful is because of Kansas City,” Phillips said. “That’s a huge, untapped market for this sort of thing.

“Kansas City is a cowtown and we have a million people over there, a lot of them with roots in agriculture. We think it is going to appeal to them.”

A state strategy

If the idea does take off in Lawrence it will continue a state trend, said Kimberly Qualls, marketing manager for the state’s department of travel and tourism.

She said the towns of Abilene, Newton, Ellsworth, Dodge City, Wichita and Caldwell already have formed a “Cattle Town Alliance.” The organization does joint marketing over the Internet and through print about the attractions the cowtowns have to offer.

Qualls said state tourism officials are excited about using the public’s interest in cowboys to attract visitors to the state, in part, because there’s not a lot of work to be done in building an image of Kansas as a cowboy haven.

Shows like “Gunsmoke” and the real life history of towns like Dodge City already have done most of the work.

“It is a good situation because people are already interested in it, and it is a product that Kansas is already know for,” Qualls said. “It makes it easier for us because we don’t have to convince people Kansas is the place to come, we just have to let them know what we have to see.”