Rowe Sanctuary wins Outstanding Ecotourism Award from Nebraska Tourism

Audubon’s Rowe Sanctuary has been awarded the 2026 Excellent Agritourism or Ecotourism Entity from Nebraska Tourism.  

The award acknowledges excellent contributions to Nebraska’s tourism business and is given to an impressive Agritourism and/or Ecotourism entity, reminiscent of outfitters, chook and wildlife watching services, working farms, or others which have had a considerable influence on the native, regional, and state tourism economic system.

Sarah Focke, Director of Go to Kearney, shared, “Rowe Sanctuary is a deserving recipient of the Excellent Agri/Eco Tourism Entity award. The Sandhill Crane migration wouldn’t be the sturdy tourism and financial driver it’s for our area with out the conservation work and management of Rowe Sanctuary. By means of our partnership, now we have seen firsthand how their efforts each defend this unimaginable pure useful resource and produce guests to our neighborhood, supporting native motels, eating places, and companies.”

A globally distinctive phenomenon, drawing guests from afar
Every spring multiple million sandhill cranes descend on the Platte Valley of Central Nebraska.  Stopping for a number of weeks to gasoline up for his or her journey northwards, that is the most important gathering of cranes wherever on the earth.

Rowe Sanctuary was acknowledged for its function as one of many premier areas for the crane migration, with 20,000+ guests yearly.  Visitation frequently consists of residents from all 93 counties in Nebraska, and in 2025 Rowe Sanctuary hosted guests from all 50 states and Washington DC. Worldwide guests frequently hail from 20-40 international locations yearly, starting from the UK to Japan, South Africa, Germany, and Australia.

Latest upgrades assist customer expertise
In Dec 2024, Rowe Sanctuary opened its doorways to a 12-million-dollar renovation and growth of the Iain Nicolson Audubon Heart, unveiling a 12,000-square-foot constructing to welcome guests.  This undertaking supplied a number of key updates to hospitality infrastructure, together with a brand new structure for the present store, professionally fabricated academic reveals distinctive within the valley, a rentable assembly area, and an expanded schooling area.

These upgrades have considerably affected Rowe’s potential to host guests. In 2025, inside a six-week interval, Rowe supplied almost 90 separate academic experiences starting from lectures, crane conduct courses, to artwork workshops and indoor viewing. Every of those applications supplied schooling on cranes, the Platte River, components affecting the native atmosphere, and comparable matters. In 2026, Rowe anticipates an identical variety of choices with even increased participation.

A big financial influence
Ecotourism at this scale has an infinite influence on the native economic system, as guests from throughout buy lodging, meals, souvenirs, and use different facilities. In 2025, a commissioned examine discovered that the sandhill crane migration generated an estimated $28 million in financial influence throughout a 13-county area and supported 219 full-time jobs.

This widespread curiosity has not gone unnoticed within the area, as Kearney was declared the “Sandhill Crane Capital of the World” in 2010.

Jonathan Nikkila, Mayor of Kearney commented: “Rowe Sanctuary is a shining instance of how ecotourism generally is a device for furthering conservation objectives. Folks come from everywhere in the world to marvel on the pure great thing about Central Nebraska. That exterior curiosity has fueled much more native satisfaction in what now we have right here and an elevated want to see it preserved and guarded.