Businesses reliant on tourism and hospitality in Buncombe County are projected to post Helene-related revenue losses up to 70% in the final quarter of 2024, leaders said Thursday.
Tourism Development Authority President and CEO Vic Isley detailed the expected fourth-quarter losses for the travel and hospitality industries during the group’s monthly meeting on Thursday.
“That means about $585 million for our local economy,” Isley said. “And that means less revenue for our local businesses, wages for our residents and ultimately tax revenues for our government partners.”
The meeting was the group’s second since Helene tore through Western North Carolina in late September.
Even while much of Buncombe County remained without consumable water, county tourism leaders have pushed forward in recent weeks with an advertising campaign to woo visitors back to Asheville.
The move drew the consternation of some local residents who argued that the effort came too soon and that the city was still reeling from the storm.
Now that safe drinking water has returned, more businesses are starting to reopen their doors, only to question whether enough visitors will come to sustain them.
The issue is a particularly fraught one for tourism-dependent Buncombe County. Nearly 14 million visitors traveled to Asheville and Buncombe County last year, spending an all-time high of nearly $3 billion, according to an August report by Tourism Economics. Overall, tourism-related spending accounts for about 20% of the county’s total annual economy.
Roughly 29,000 jobs in Buncombe County are supported by tourism, according to the TDA. That equates to one in seven jobs.
‘A matter of the heart’
Amid the grim projections of Helene’s economic impact, state and local tourism leaders at Thursday’s meeting emphasized the need to draw visitors back to the region. They noted that several major local attractions such as the Biltmore and Omni Grove Park Inn have reopened, while others such as the Blue Ridge Parkway are still in progress.
“We are speaking to the heart,” Dodie Stephens, the TDA’s vice president of marketing, said in describing the ad campaign’s message. “Travel to the Asheville area right now. It’s a matter of the heart. It’s a matter of the heart for us, those who love us, and it means more now more than ever. So, we are inviting visitors to join us and be a part of that comeback.”
Scott Peacock, director of tourism marketing and communications for Visit NC, said state tourism officials have produced an interactive map so that travelers can see what parts of Western North Carolina are welcoming visitors and plan their trips accordingly.
The state has also examined data from other tourism destinations that have been hard hit by hurricanes over the years.
“We’re talking about a 10-to-27-month average on return to a visitor economy of the pre-storm levels,” Peacock said. “So that’s sort of what the headwinds are that we’re working up against, that we know are probably going to be pretty certain to affect us.”
In an effort to draw visitors back to the area, the state tourism board has launched an advertising campaign that is expected to continue for a year after Helene, Peacock said.
‘That rawness isn’t going to go away’
In response to a question about local opposition to the TDA’s marketing campaign, Isley and other board members acknowledged the criticism but defended the group’s efforts as integral to the region’s recovery.
“We have to provide space for people to feel how they feel,” Isley said. “And we all have a role to play. And our role is to help support the health of the economy here. …We have to be responsible not to be a part of an economic disaster on the back of a natural disaster.”
She also noted the ripple effects of the tourism industry’s losses.
“That $585 million that’s gone from our economy in the fourth quarter – by the time the state says, ‘Where’s our sales tax revenue?’ in the first quarter of next year, that then trickles down to the county … Then they don’t have money to provide public services. That is the cycle,” Isley said. “And because we’re on the front lines literally and figuratively, that’s how acute we know the issue is.”
TDA board member Lucious Wilson, the general manager of Wedge Brewery, spoke about the issues facing the city in personal terms. Wedge has one location downtown and two in the hard-hit River Arts District, one of which remains closed after the storm.
Wilson said he goes “into a disaster zone every single day” and that he has learned to embrace “waking up every morning and not feeling good and not wanting to do it, but doing it – for the team around me, for the people around me.”
“So my question back to those people that are like, ‘Is it too soon?’ Sometimes, yes. … That rawness isn’t going to go away,” Wilson said. “Driving past a bunch of trees that are just fallen isn’t going to just go away. Understanding what it looks like when the mud dries in a particular area – this is not going to go away. But you still have to pay your mortgage. And you still have to feed your kids. And you still have to do the things in life that are the responsibilities of the things that we have. And so, it’s twofold. It is too soon. But also, it’s not soon enough.”
At the end of Thursday’s meeting, Miranda Escalante, co-chair of Asheville Food and Beverage United, addressed the board on behalf of service industry workers. She said of the 10,000 to 12,000 people who applied for disaster unemployment assistance after Helene, thousands were service workers.
Most, Escalante said, receive $300 a week or less – a far cry from the amount of money needed to survive in a high-cost-of-living area such as Asheville.
She noted that many workers have not heard back about disaster-related grants and implored the TDA to press for more, and quicker, assistance.
“I just appreciate what you’re doing and I just want to keep encouraging you to keep us in mind, because we’re here and a lot of us want to stay,” Escalante said.
