From Staff Reports

 A sharp decline “in combined hotel, short-term vacation rental and bed-and-breakfast sales for Asheville and Buncombe County began in February and has run through at least April,” the Asheville Citizen Times reported on June 29.

The ACT noted that the tourism plunge was unveiled in the latest data presented at a June 28 meeting of the local Tourism Development Authority at UNC Asheville.

Specifically, the ACT reported, “Overnight tourism throughout Buncombe County has tumbled more than 11 percent, according to local government officials who track the numbers.”

Vic Isley, the TDA’s president and CEO, was quoted by the ACT as saying  that the trend was caused — in part —by “real and perceived safety issues.”

The story added, “Yet, despite what one hotelier (H.P. Patel) called ‘an alarming trend,’ the Buncombe TDA is forecasting record-breaking lodging sales of $660 million for the fiscal year that will start July 1 and run through June 30, 2024.”

The Daily Planet called Isley at the TDA office on July 13 for further comment on the tourist-driven Asheville area’s unusual tourism contraction, but was informed that she was on vacation and would not be available to respond by this edition’s early-morning July 17 press deadline. 

Further the ACT story noted the following:

“In February, lodging sales were $33.3 million, down 2 percent from the $34 million in February 2022. The slump grew to 6 percent in March, with $46.2 million in sales compared to $49.2 million a year ago.

“The biggest gap happened in April with $49.3 million in sales ― more than 11 percent down from $55.7 million in April 2022.

“Buncombe’s drop is part of a national trend of ‘normalizing of leisure demand after the post pandemic surge,’ said TDA President and CEO Vic Isley. But the local falloff is more severe than the 1.4 percent national reduction Isley said.

“A factor leading factor behind that appeared to be tourists feeling less safe in Asheville, she said.

“‘Putting this all together again − data and conversations and reports from individual businesses. We are hearing real and perceived safety issues are reported to be curbing travel decisions and travel experiences once they’re here in market in Asheville in our community,’ she said.”

Meanwhile, Patel, a TDA board member and hotelier, was quoted by the ACT as calling the tourism drop “an alarming trend... My hotels are mid-scale hotels, and we are seeing the same pattern.”

Patel reportedly voiced his apprehensions about the $2.5 million slashing in tourism marketing funds in the TDA’s budget at the June 28 meeting,

“Cuts in marketing followed years of criticism by activists and other residents that the area was suffering from over-tourism and that the growing millions of dollars in hotel tax money controlled by the TDA should go to affordable housing and other public benefits,” the ACT noted.

“A law passed in 2022 changed the portion of hotel taxes that must go to marketing, shifting it from three quarters to two thirds. The remainder goes to projects that increase hotel business but can also have larger public benefits, such as greenways or sports fields.

“Patel he was anxious to see how Asheville’s current situation compared to other tourist hubs, such as Charleston, South Carolina, or Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

“‘With a lot of bad media that has come out lately, with FOX News, and we don’t want that to deter people from coming to Ashville. But obviously we need to be out there we need to be marketing,’” Patel said, according to the ACT..

“Despite those concerns the newly passed budget forecasts unprecedented growth in sales and hotel tax collections,” the ACT story reiterated.