Previous mark was set last year, analysis for TDA shows
bySALLY KESTIN
If it feels like Buncombe County was more crowded last year, here’s why: A record 13.9 million tourists visited.
On an average day in 2023, Buncombe had one visitor for every seven residents, according to the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority.
The number comes from an analysis done for the TDA every other year by Tourism Economics that measures the impact of tourism on Buncombe. The study reported 13.6 million visitors in 2022 and 12.5 million in 2021.
The majority of visitors last year, 9 million, came from 50 miles away or more and spent the day in the county, while 5 million stayed overnight.
The TDA touted the economic benefits of all those tourists in a news release this week that said visitors spent nearly $3 billion, making Buncombe the third largest visitor economy behind Mecklenburg (Charlotte) at $5.8 billion and Wake (Raleigh) at $3.3 billion.
Hotels, vacation rentals and other lodging businesses benefited the most from Buncombe’s tourists, accounting for 30 percent of the spending, followed by restaurants and breweries, retail shops and galleries, tour outfitters and transportation providers.
“Nearly 2,000 Explore Asheville partner businesses and organizations both serve and benefit from guests to our community,” said Vic Isley, president & CEO for Explore Asheville and the TDA. “We are grateful for travel and hospitality businesses and their team members for delivering quality experiences and services to customers every day.”
The number of tourists in the county has steadily grown largely as a result of a self-perpetuating tourism marketing machine, as Asheville Watchdog reported in its 2023 four-part series, Selling Asheville.
Installments explained how tourism became a $3 billion behemoth that transformed the city’s economy following the 1983 implementation of an occupancy tax in Buncombe County; how the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority spends occupancy tax proceeds on influencers, $250 shirts, and costly dinners as part of the marketing machine; how that marketing has contributed to the growth in transplants and housing costs; and why local leaders have called for a reduction in the TDA’s marketing budget.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Email skestin@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
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17 Comments
I miss 2020.
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This is why the locals can’t enjoy our city any more.
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So… How about the TDA helps pay for our local, law-enforcement, firefighters, water infrastructure, repaving of roads, and extending our sidewalks and greenways?
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Absolutely 100%
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No longer my hometown.
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Is this a cause for celebration?
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When is enough enough?
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Rather than sinking dollars into advertising, banquets and $250 shirts, shouldn’t TDA be required by the state to spend more on the infrastructure, public services (more police are alloted to tourist areas and, therefore, more crime in residential areas), providing lower cost housing for workers and helping with the homeless problem since there are more homeless attracted to coming to Asheville to beg because it is a tourist mecca? The 1/3 of the taxes given back to Asheville usually is used for something that benefits tourists, such as improving an amusem*nt area, more than the residents, such as fixing potholed roads and hiring private security to allow more police to patrol residential areas. Tourism is good for business and providing jobs, but tourist taxes should be used to repair the damage to residents impacted by it.
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This report of 13.9 visitors to Buncombe seems implausible to me. It equates to an average of over 38,000 visitors each and every day, all year long.
Here’s an idea for further investigation, Asheville Watchdog: transparency in the data released about tourism in our area.
The TDA’s statistical consulting group defines “visitor” as “…those who stayed overnight or traveled more than 50 miles to the destination.”
“You say 38,000 each day, but it’s not uniform all year,” you say. OK – hypothesize a more nuanced scenario: 3 four-month “seasons” by tourist-volume. Jul-Oct is “Peak-Season”, Jan-Apr is “Off-Season”, “Mid-Season” is Nov, Dec, May and June. Further assume visitor flow is 10-times heavier during Peak than Off-Season, 5-times heavier in Mid-Season. The average visitor count would then be: 7,140 per day off-season, 35,696 per day mid-season, and 71,392 per day peak-season.
My figures assume Tourism Economics is really reporting on “visitor-days”, where someone staying for a week = 7 “visitors”. That’s a more meaningful metric than “unduplicated-person-visit” (where a weeklong visitor counts as “1”), and it’s the only number you could shoot for with available data. But an individual visitor is bound to be duplicated across the datasets TDA can access. A family of 4 visits the Biltmore Estate, then stays at the Renaissance Hotel overnight — either they’re counted as 8 visitors that day, or Tourism Economics is having to impose many assumptions on the raw data to compensate for this type of duplication.
As one reader, I’d be interested in knowing more about the assumptions made by TDA’s consultant in their data model, and how TDA may spin all these numbers in to protect its interests.
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When will anyone have the guts to do an in depth report on the social and environmental impacts of (too much) tourism?
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For sure Asheville is not the livable, comfortable city it once was. The city belongs to tourists, not the residents any more.
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There are unseen dangers lurking just beyond this barge of unchecked exponential growth…
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double edged sword. Great for businesses, not so great for everyone else here.
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Is it sustainable? Places/cities in Europe like Barcelona Venice, Florence, Lisbon et al no longer think so and are rethinking their tourism vis a vis quality of life equation. Unfortunately, the TDA here in Asheville knows only one direction… UP! …and the steeper the trajectory, the better. They have no pause button, and they have no oversight …they literally answer to no one. Will Asheville and its environs continue to be a sought after and desirable place to live, work and retire? Probably not for many if we are forced to continue down the unchecked tourism path. Yes, forced. Everyone sees this, everyone knows this… it isn’t rocket science. And we need to reign in the TDA so no more US Tennis Open stunts are what makes Asheville a notable -and not in a good way- exception. Lowering the percentage of hotel room tax money the TDA receives would be a good start.. a very good start actually.
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Nope, not sustainable at its current rate given the carrying capacity of this city. Strangely, the very people who should be most concerned about slowing this fast-moving train before it runs off the tracks are the very ones shoveling coal in as fast as they can…the TDA…You mention Barcelona and other cities in Europe. Even the peaceful Japanese are pushing back against too much tourism now.
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If money brought in from tourists was spent appropriately (on infrastructure, staffing for police/fire/emergency personnel, and housing for locals), complaints would be far fewer. Why is this so hard??
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With all those visitors you would think the businesses downtown could pay a better salary to their local living employees
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