Blog

In collaboration with other government agencies and Western North Carolina tourism businesses, chambers of commerce, and economic development agencies, the NC Department of Commerce's Division of Tourism continues to focus energy and resources in response to the I-40 rock slide. Efforts are well underway for additional communications in key markets to be sure prospective travelers understand their access to North Carolina’s mountains is unimpeded during the holiday and winter seasons.

Research conducted by the Division of Tourism, in partnership with the Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau and Biltmore Company, in key markets including Atlanta, Knoxville, Columbia, Greenville/Spartanburg, Raleigh, Charlotte and Greensboro/Winston-Salem determined that many potential travelers believe the road closure would be a major inconvenience or require a detour for travel to the region.

To stimulate holiday and winter travel to this region and to support the tourism-related businesses that directly benefit from this travel, the Division is implementing a cooperative advertising program to reach key visitor markets for the mountains. The program will include advertising on Metro Radio Networks using a broad range of stations with accessibility as the key to the message.

We just completed our annual NC Governor’s Conference on Hospitality and Tourism, with record  high attendance of more than 530 tourism, business and government leaders from across the state. We truly did “Rally in Raleigh,” learning a lot from each other and from state and national experts. Despite the wintry weather and the challenges of the economy, attendees were upbeat, especially after hearing from Governor Perdue and Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco.
 
Both the Governor and the Secretary emphasized how important tourism is to the state’s economy ($16.5 billion in visitor spending in 2007) and what a phenomenal number of natural, cultural and heritage tourism assets we have in North Carolina. We also heard from New York Times best-selling author and branding guru Dan Heath and online marketing expert Hannah Parramore, both of whom provided excellent ideas on how to improve promotional and branding strategies. Finally, we presented the state's marketing and co-operative advertising plan for the upcoming year, which allows local tourism agencies and businesses to leverage their advertising budgets and marketing messages by working in concert with us. The plan was well-received, and we look forward to implementing it with their help!
 
By working together, we can continue to support over 14,000 tourism-related businesses and non-profit organizations across the state and support jobs for over 190,000 North Carolinians who earn their living the tourism industry. To learn more about our marketing programs visit http://www.nccommerce.com/tourismservices or to plan a trip in NC, visit us at http://www.visitnc.com.