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••• SPONSORED SECTION •••
CELEBRATION STATION
North Carolina tourism is reporting document customer spending. The trade retains the get together going, debuting locations and organizing occasions, many celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday.
North Carolina tourism officers have tons to smile about. Visitor spending reached $36.7 billion in 2024, a 3% enhance from the earlier document of $35.6 billion a yr earlier, in keeping with the N.C. Department of Commerce. Seventy-one of the state’s 100 counties reported elevated exercise, together with double-digit jumps in Ashe, Burke, Cleveland, Gaston, Iredell, Stokes and Union counties.
“We were clearly thrilled with 2024’s visitor spending and proud of our role in promoting the North Carolina travel experience,” says Wit Tuttell, Visit North Carolina government director. “The state’s appeal starts with scenic beauty, but it’s also due to culture, innovation and hospitable warmth. We can celebrate all those strengths without a jaw-dropping record, which frankly might be hard to top.”
North Carolina was the fifth most-visited state for home journey in 2024, in keeping with the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. (Data for 2025 hasn’t been launched.)
“Among the satisfactions of promoting North Carolina tourism is the knowledge of how many of our travelers return,” Tuttell says. “We’re talking 86% of out-of-state visitors. This is more than a point of pride. It’s also knowing that tourism is an engine that supports our state and local economies and saves residents money on their tax bills. I tend to see it as an unbeatable mix of business and pleasure.”
But these document numbers aren’t the one causes to have a good time.
The locations behind them are taking part within the get together being thrown this yr for the nation’s 250th birthday. “America 250 creates prime opportunities for exploring stories of places that are rich in character as well as historic significance,” Tuttell says. “The Halifax Resolves, for instance, is a true ‘First in Freedom’ moment, and visiting the site during America 250 will heighten awareness of the courage it took to stand up to powerful forces. On a lighter note, we might find more pleasure in a sip of Captain Jack Pilsner or a beer from Natty Greene’s by reflecting on their namesakes.”
MOUNTAINS ARE RISING
Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina in September 2024. But restoration efforts launched from close to and much have completed a lot, rebuilding roads, communities and industries, together with tourism, throughout the area. “I’d say the mountains are going from recovery into growth,” Tuttell says.
The area’s development is fueling what Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority and its vacation spot advertising group, Explore Asheville, label “restorative journeys.” Visitors are seeing the area in a brand new mild. “The Asheville area is back — full of that well-loved blend of entertainment, arts, food scene and outdoors that so many North Carolinians have come to savor,” says Vic Isley, Explore Asheville president and CEO. “Our creative community always has a way of unlocking your spirit and encouraging you to experience life at your own pace in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We invite folks to come see for themselves in 2026.”
New points of interest are awaiting guests. Lower Ghost Town, which caters to climbers, is close to Chimney Rock State Park and is slated to open in April. Beacon Bike Park in Swannanoa is reworking the grounds of a former blanket manufacturing unit, as soon as the world’s largest, into strolling trails, bike park and live performance venue; it’s scheduled to open this spring. At the Asheville Art Museum, “In a New Light: American Impressionism 1870-1940” traces the motion’s evolution within the U.S via the work of greater than 75 artists. It runs via June 29.
The 114-mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway between Asheville and Cherokee, virtually half of the route’s North Carolina mileage, reopened in September, simply in time for the area’s busiest tourism season.
Visitors can observe it on their approach to a number of America 250 locations, together with Oconaluftee Indian Village, which recreates life within the 1760s, when Europeans first settled on Cherokee land. If they head east to McDowell County, they’ll discover the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, which traces the route militia took to the Battle of Kings Mountain, a decisive patriot victory that Thomas Jefferson stated turned the tide of the American Revolution.
Tourism infuses practically $3 billion to the Asheville area every year, in keeping with Explore Asheville, and its No. 1 attraction is Biltmore.
The nation’s largest personal house welcomes about 1.4 million guests yearly. On choose evenings via mid-October, many will get pleasure from “Luminere.” It will flip the grounds into an immersive out of doors artwork exhibit. Photos from the property’s previous and Vanderbilt household can be projected onto the home and different spots. Visitors can get pleasure from them throughout a self-guided tour whereas listening to a customized rating written by Julian Grefe and carried out by the Asheville Symphony.
The Biltmore identify is connected to the PGA Tour’s upcoming event at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove in close by Arden. The mid-September Biltmore Championship, the beginning of a four-year run, is the tour’s first cease in Buncombe County in additional than 80 years. Famed golfer Jack Nicklaus designed the course.
PIEDMONT IS SWINGING
The Moore County communities of Pinehurst, Southern Pines and Aberdeen are the Home of American Golf. Their 19 programs had been among the many state’s high 100 final yr. This yr they’ll host main tournaments, together with the lads’s and girls’s North & South Amateur Championships from June 28 to July 4. The males’s and girls’s U.S. Opens will return to Pinehurst No. 2 in 2029, a repeat efficiency of 2014, the primary and solely different time the tournaments had been staged on the identical course in consecutive weeks.
Golfers and followers alike gas tourism spending within the county, which was $860 million in 2024, in keeping with Visit Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen. Tourism was the county’s second-largest employer with practically 6,300 employees that yr, and it saved $546.46 in taxes per capita. It generated $28.1 million in native taxes and $32.2 million in state tax income.
Swing as much as Greensboro, and Grandover Resort & Spa provides 36 holes of golf, spa, tennis courts, artwork gallery, reside leisure and out of doors pool.
Follow the North Carolina Civil Rights Trail via Guilford County, and go to websites related with the motion, starting with the F.W. Woolworth retailer in Greensboro, website of lunch-counter sit-ins in 1960. The path additionally consists of International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex in Fayetteville, Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, Earl Scruggs Center and Buffalo Creek Gallery in Shelby, High Point’s Blair Park Municipal Golf Course, Raleigh’s Village District and John Chavis Memorial Park, and Durham’s Whistle Stop Tours and Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.
The Michelin Guide acknowledges practically 50 eating places throughout North Carolina. Some are in Charlotte, which British General Cornwallis referred to as a “hornet’s nest of resistance” in 1780.
Today, the state’s most-populous metropolis makes it simple to couple a top-notch meal with top-notch leisure.
“Bank of America Stadium anchors a year of marquee moments, from the return of the ACC Football Championship to a lineup of top-tier concerts, including Bruno Mars, Zach Bryan and Ed Sheeran,” says Shawn Flynn, Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority director of company communications. “The stadium will also host the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team in one of its final international friendlies ahead of the FIFA World Cup, underscoring Charlotte’s growing stature as a soccer city on the global stage.”
The lineup at close by Spectrum Center consists of Nine Inch Nails, Eric Church and RUSH alongside WWE Friday Night SmackDown. Truist Field hosts Charlotte Knights baseball video games and the return of Banana Ball in early June, when the Firefighters will play the Texas Tailgaters. “The energy, the fans, the city — it’s the perfect place to keep growing Banana Ball to 1 billion fans,” Jesse Cole, founding father of the touring Savannah Bananas touring baseball video games, says in a information launch.
While NASCAR races its Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May, NFL’s Panthers play via the autumn and NBA’s Hornets play via winter, the Queen City provides loads of non-sporting occasions year-round. “Spring brings Charlotte SHOUT!, a multiweek festival celebrating art, music, food and ideas across Uptown, while September welcomes the Charlotte International Arts Festival, which transforms the city through global and local artistic expression,” Flynn says.
“Culinary experiences remain a major driver of visitation in 2026, building on national recognition from the Michelin Guide, James Beard Award-honored chefs and Charlotte’s role as host city for Bravo’s “Top Chef Season 23.” Signature occasions, like Savor Charlotte, additional highlight town’s meals tradition via chef-driven experiences and particular menus.”
CRVA’s 2025 Impact Report detailed the trade’s significance to the area. “Visitors delivered $6.4 billion in economic impact for Mecklenburg County and supported nearly 38,000 local jobs, fueled by stronger hotel performance, record-breaking conventions and a world-class calendar of events,” it stated.
COAST AWASH IN HISTORY
North Carolina’s coast stretches about 300 miles and consists of seashores, quaint waterfront cities and fishing villages, wild horses and a memorial to the primary profitable heavier-than-air, managed, powered human flight. All are websites of America 250 occasions.
Battlefields and buildings from the American Revolution and Civil Wars are preserved all through the area, together with Fort Fisher State Historic Site in Kure Beach, Fort Macon State Park in Atlantic Beach, Moores Creek National Battlefield in Currie and Fort Caswell on Oak Island.
North Carolina was {one of the} 13 unique colonies and the twelfth state to ratify the Constitution. And none of its coastal locations could also be extra tightly tied to America 250 than Halifax State Historic Site. It’s the place Halifax Resolve Days: Prelude to Revolution can be held April 10 via 12. Visitors will participate in an interactive recreation of occasions from April 12, 1776, when the Fourth Provincial Congress licensed delegates to the Continental Congress to vote for independence.
The Crystal Coast — from Harkers Island to Emerald Isle — has ready a busy summer season schedule for guests. It consists of the Beaufort Wine & Food Spring Festival in mid-April and Atlantic Beach Music Festival on May 16. “One of our bigger events is the Emerald Isle St. Patrick’s Day Festival, which usually has a big turnout,” says Steve Conklin, Crystal Coast N.C. info companies and customer middle supervisor.
“And the International Dark Sky Week [stargazing from Harkers Island] is a pretty big staple as well.” Other well-known occasions embrace the Newport Pig Cookin’ Contest, in its forty eighth yr, and Wooden Boat Show in Beaufort, celebrating its fiftieth yr. ■
— Kathy Blake is a author from japanese North Carolina.
For 40 years, sharing the tales of North Carolina’s dynamic enterprise group.
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