The application process is done online. Please click here to submit an application. If you have any questions about how to complete the application, please join us on an informational session or contact Rosa Cavazos at rosa.cavazos@ks.gov

Informational Session Dates:
Tuesday, April 15 @ 10 AM – Link to Zoom
Wednesday, April 16 @ 1 PM – Link to Zoom

Click here to download the full program guidelines

Overview of the Sunflower Summer Program
The Sunflower Summer Program is a benefit for Kansas families with school-aged children to encourage them to explore, and fall in love, with Kansas. The program is designed to give affordable access to tourism attractions across the state and support the Kansas tourism economy. Eligible Kansas families download the Sunflower Summer App to claim tickets to participating venues that meet the criteria stated below.
Tickets are redeemed at participating venues upon their arrival. Each user can only use tickets once per venue during the 2025 season.

NOTE: Revisions from last year’s program are highlighted in the guidelines below.

2025 Sunflower Summer Season
The 2025 Sunflower Summer user season will run from Saturday, July 12 through Sunday, August 3, 2025. Due to approved funding by the Kansas Legislature for this program, we must stay within the funding provided. The season may be extended or shortened depending on the program use. If funds are depleted before August 3rd, the Sunflower Summer Program would have to end. If funding is available after August 3rd, the program could be extended. Any changes to the program season will be communicated to participating venues via email with as much advance notice as possible.

Venue Eligibility
Venues must meet eligibility requirements below to participate in the 2025 Sunflower Summer Program:

• The attraction must be a tourism-driven attraction located in the state of Kansas. Attractions must fit into one of the following categories: museums, discovery centers, historic sites, arboretums, zoos, guided trolley tours, art galleries, live theater events, professional sports events.
• Live professional theater events and professional sport events are eligible for program participation for one event date or show run during the 2025 Sunflower Summer Season. Live theater events must be rated ‘G’ and/or appropriate for children of all ages
• A formal application must be submitted no later than April 30, 2025 and approved by Kansas Tourism to participate in the program. Application submission does not mean acceptance into the program.
• Eligible venues must have standard operating hours. While there is no minimum requirement for number of set operating hours, the venue must have a consistent schedule of operations during the Sunflower Summer program duration. Venues that are open by appointment only will not be accepted.
• Venues must be an existing attraction. Experiences that have been developed for Sunflower Summer participation will not be accepted.
• All venues are required to have an up-to-date TravelKS.com listing that meets the requirements listed at https://sunflowersummer.org/venue-info.
• All frontline admissions staff are required to participate in a virtual Sunflower Summer program training to maintain eligibility for the 2025 season. This training will be made available closer to program launch.

You can download the complete guidelines requirements here

If you are a tourism related business that is not eligible under the above criteria, there are other opportunities for promotion through Kansas Tourism. We HIGHLY encourage your locations to add a coupon or deal on TravelKS.com. (instructions to do so here), a page that will be promoted to Sunflower Summer users. This opportunity is free and does not require an application submission. For more information, contact Rosa, rosa.cavazos@ks.gov.

Admission Based Venue Pricing Structures
Venues will be required to provide pricing information on the submitted application for their 2025 summer. Sunflower
Summer reimbursements cannot exceed standard published attraction pricing.

• The program requires a maximum of two demographic distinctions: 1 student rate (Pre-K – 12th Grade) and 1 adult rate (for accompanying adults).
• Proposed reimbursement rates should reflect Summer 2025 standard admission pricing, not to exceed $15 per ticket. Any proposed admission price rate greater than $15 will be negotiated.
• Submitted summer pricing must be independently verifiable by being listed on the attraction’s website or a pinned post on their social media profiles. If prices are not able to be verified, the attraction will not be admitted into the program.

Non-Admission-Based Venues
Non-admission-based venues are eligible for participation in the Sunflower Summer program. Per legislative requirements, attractions in counties with 15,000 or less population are eligible for a $5 grant per ticket claimed at your location. Attractions in counties with more than 15,000 population are not eligible for grant payments but may still participate in the program for marketing and ticket tracking purposes. Click here for the list of county populations used for this purpose (provided by the Kansas Division of the Budget).

Reimbursement Requirements

• Participating venues (excluding those ineligible for payment) will be required to enter into a signed agreement with Kansas Tourism, a division of the Kansas Department of Commerce, to receive reimbursements.
• State processes require the following to be submitted to enter into an agreement with the state. These items are required to be submitted along with your application:
  • W-9
  • Signed State of Kansas Sexual Harassment Form stating that you acknowledge that the State of Kansas
    has a Sexual Harassment Policy
  • Signed Certification of Company- By signing, the vendor/contractor is agreeing that they will not provide
    or procure to the State of Kansas any covered telecommunications equipment that is listed (on the
    certification) during the commission of any service.
  • If your reimbursements are over $100k in a Fiscal Year, you will be required to sign a certification that
    your organization is not currently engaged in a boycott of goods or services from Israel as required by
    Kansas State Statute, HB 2482, 2018 Legislative Session. Once your reimbursements approach that
    requirement, members of the Sunflower Summer team will reach out to coordinate.
• Venues are required to check the countdown timer on user app for every participant.
• Failure to check countdown timer or other protocols may result in non-reimbursement for documented
  tickets. Kansas Tourism reserves the right to terminate a venue’s participation in the program for multiple
  infractions.
• Venue employees may assist qualifying individuals (as detailed in Program Participant Criteria below) in signing
  up for the Sunflower Summer program, but user criteria must be met and followed by participants.

Payment Schedule
One payment will be made to all participating venues approximately 2-3 weeks after the completion of the 2025 program.

Paper Voucher Use
Paper vouchers are an acceptable alternative to digital tickets proving the following requirements are met. Paper vouchers will be provided to venues closer to program launch.

• Paper vouchers should be used very sparingly and ONLY under extenuating circumstances. Paper vouchers will
  only be accepted if either:
  • The user doesn’t have access to smartphone technology.
  • Technology issues (ie internet outage) prevent users and venues from using the app.
• Paper vouchers must be filled out to completion or they will not be accepted and the venue will not be reimbursed for the attendees listed on an incomplete paper voucher.
• If a paper voucher is not accepted by Kansas Tourism, the venue will be provided feedback and an explanation.
• If our staff notices increased usage of paper vouchers we will be in contact with your organization for additional clarification.

Secret Shoppers
Kansas Tourism may utilize secret shoppers to monitor user experience and program compliance to maintain the best possible experience for users and venues. These visits will be well documented and will result in written feedback.

Program Participant Criteria
Program participants must meet the following criteria to participate in the 2025 Sunflower Summer program. Program participants will only be allowed to redeem a ticket once per attraction, per season through the app or via paper voucher.

• Both students and the guardian must be residents of the state of Kansas.
• There must be at least one qualifying school age student present when claiming ticket admission. Adults
  claiming tickets with no student present are not eligible and will not be reimbursed
• Student criteria:
  • Students from Pre-K-Grade 12, or approximately ages 4-18.
  • Students enrolled in 18-21 Transition Programs are also eligible.
  • Students attending public schools, private and faith-based schools, or who are home-schooled may participate.
  • Must have correct grade, age, school district, and county of each student listed in the app.
  • Students must be accompanied by an adult to gain admission to the attraction.
• Guardian criteria:
  • • Per legislative requirements, only one guardian per visit is eligible for admission reimbursement under the program. If two (or more) guardians are present, additional adults must pay for the remaining admissions out of pocket.
  • Guardians for the program may include: parents, legal guardians, grandparents, other adult family members, daycare providers, etc.
  • An adult creates an account first in the app. Once the adult account is created, the children and other eligible adults are added. This becomes the family account.
  • There will be an option in the Sunflower Summer app for users to transfer a child’s ticket voucher to another adult who also has downloaded the app. Each child will have one ticket for each participating attraction; when it has been used their passport is stamped and will no longer be accessible for future use for that attraction.

Sunflower Summer Promotion and Marketing
Kansas Tourism will be promoting state-wide use of the 2025 Sunflower Summer Program. Stakeholders, such as participating venues and local destination marketing organizations, may market the program when the following guidelines are met:

• Unpaid promotions – Any unpaid promotions (flyers, social media) that utilize provided materials can do so without Kansas Tourism approvals. Toolkits providing materials will be provided by Kansas Tourism by May 1.
• Unpaid promotions – Any unpaid promotions with customized materials (custom flyers, social posts, etc.) must be approved by Kansas Tourism in advance.
• Paid promotions – If stakeholders wish to run a paid marketing campaign for the program, all materials and campaign plans are required to have written approval from Kansas Tourism. All paid promotions must be submitted to Kansas Tourism for approval no later than June 20, 2025.

For more information on the Sunflower Summer Program, please contact Rosa Cavazos, rosa.cavazos@ks.gov.

April 15 Training Session

About the pre-launch training:
We will be hosting virtual webinars with all of our participating attractions so that everyone understands the program guidelines. In these webinars, we will discuss things like season dates, program updates, and what you need to apply for the program.

Can’t make either? Don’t worry, we’ll record it and put it online to review on demand.

Dates:
Tuesday, April 15 @ 10 AM – Link to Recording
Wednesday, April 16 @ 1 PM – Link to Zoom

We will be updating the Marketing Toolkit for the 2025 program. Please revisit this page on May 1, 2025, to access the updated marketing toolkit.

We are requiring the following upgrades to your listing on TravelKS.com in order to be a participant in the Sunflower Summer program. Find a complete guide to our extranet system herePDF File. If you don’t have access to the TravelKS.com extranet or have additional questions on the listing requirements below, please email hunter.feyerherm@ks.gov. Our team will be reviewing all applicant listings as applications come in and will be working with your team to coordinate the following:

1. Correct all duplicate listing titles

• You may have two listings on our site, an issue that causes issues on search engines like Google. To easily find this information, search for your attraction on our search feature (the magnifying glass in the top right hand corner of the site) and make note if you see your attraction appear multiple times in the results.
• If you have an event or meeting space, we ask that you also create another listing for that and title it “Example Attraction – Event & Meeting Space”. Travelers and meeting planners are looking for different content, so we like to have separate listings that cater to each audience.
• If you do not have an event space and the listings are simply just duplicated by accident, copy the URLs and send an email to hunter.feyerherm@ks.gov so we can correct the issue.

2. Update all listing descriptions

• Review those listing descriptions so that everything is accurate and up to date.
• Feel free to spend extra time on your listing descriptions. Make use of bold and italic text when needed. Including web links to pages on your site is a great way to convert our traffic to your internal site.
  • For our events “click here”
  • For our full menu “click here”
  • To buy tickets “click here”
• Remember, this description needs to paint a picture of why guests should come to your attraction. Guests are more likely to visit if your attraction has a great description (and excellent photos) that inspire their curiosity.
• Learn more about editing descriptions in the extranet here (PDF File).

3. Must have a minimum of 3 high-quality photos. At least one of these photos must be horizontally (landscape) oriented with a size of at least 800 x 600 pixels.

• We are requiring at least 3, preferably more, high-quality images.
• Our listings have a photo feature that best displays a horizontal image for the lead photo. Vertical photos will be cropped to fit in the photo display frame and we cannot control where that crop happens. To keep your listings looking great, we require at least one horizontal image.
• Learn more about adding and editing photos here (PDF File).

4. Please have all location amenities updated.

• Updating amenities not only improves the listing’s performance across the site, but it also helps website users find the best fitting attraction for them.
• Please take the time to add your accessibility amenities (ADA, Wheelchairs, etc..) for users. Having information listed about accessibility is a requirement for this program. The CDC reports that 26% of the U.S. population live with a disability, and we want users with disabilities to be familiar and comfortable with the services and amenities your organization provides before they go.
• Learn more about editing amenities here (PDF File).

5. Update all social media links

• Please make sure all social media links are up to date (Facebook, Instagram, X, TripAdvisor, Yelp)

6. Submit any pending, tourist-friendly events to our TravelKS.com calendar

• Don’t forget to include any upcoming events you have on your calendar for the summer. Those are linked to your listing at the bottom of the listing’s page and will be displayed on our calendar of events.
• Please make sure all events have photos (same rules as the listing photos above.)
• Only submit events that encourage travel to your attraction. Avoid local events like community coffees, potato bars fundraisers, etc.
• Learn more about submitting events here (PDF File).