North Carolina has set a new record for tourism spending, hitting $36.7 billion in 2024. According to a press release from Governor Josh Stein, despite the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene, this figure represents a steady increase from the previous year's $35.6 billion. Governor Stein praised the state's resilience and the value of travel and tourism, particularly highlighting the need for ongoing support in western North Carolina as it recovers from the hurricane's damage.
Timed with National Travel and Tourism Week, Governor Stein made it known, "North Carolina is a fantastic place to visit." The state's Welcome Centers are actively boosting this message with planned activities. In a sign of a robust tourist sector, the state's tourism-supported workforce grew by 1.4 percent to 230,338 jobs. This growth, residing in an influx of visitors, allowed for state and local tax revenues to rebound, climbing to nearly $2.7 billion, as detailed by Visit North Carolina-commissioned research conducted by Tourism Economics.
North Carolina, which hosts nearly 40 million domestic visitors, has held onto its position as the fifth most visited state in the U.S. The rise in tourism has brought gains to the international market, with over 900,000 international travelers visiting in 2024, inducing a 16.5 percent increase in spending. "From our smallest towns to our largest cities, tourism means jobs for more than 50,000 small businesses," said Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley in the release, underlining the wide-reaching benefits.
Households across North Carolina have directly felt the fiscal advantages of this tourism bump, with an average savings of $593 in taxes due to revenue from visitor spending. Contributing substantially to federal, state, and local coffers, visitors spent more than $100 million per day in the state. The ripple effect of this spending, said to generate around $7.3 million per day in combined state and local tax revenue, has not just been felt in the collective pocketbook but reflected also as a personal relief to the tune of an average per capita tax savings of $241.
Detailed reports on the economic impact of the travel sector, including measures of visitor economy through a variety of data sources, are available at the Visit North Carolina site, which also hosts archived reports going back to 2005. A forthcoming supplemental report will further dissect the regional and local visitor data to provide a transparent view of Hurricane Helene's impact on western North Carolina's tourism industry.
