Business owners needs to put aside their bickering and resentments for the good of Maggie Valley, Mayor Ron DeSimone emphasized last week.

“This community has been divided for a long time,” DeSimone said at a Maggie Chamber of Commerce meeting last Tuesday. “We need a united voice. We need to come together.”

A builder and architect by trade, DeSimone likes to have a plan, but he said he needs help to make a comprehensive business plan for Maggie Valley.

“I’ve created a business plan for my business but not for a whole valley,” DeSimone said. “All I am asking for is a little of your time.”

With help from the Southwestern Commission, Maggie Valley received a $20,000 grant from the North Carolina Rural Center to develop such a plan for the valley. The commission also pointed the town to Craig Madison, the former president and CEO of the Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa. Madison, along with Maggie leaders, will travel from business to business talking to people about what they want for the valley.

Input from business owners will be the heart of the plan, DeSimone said.

“This is their plan. It belongs to the valley,” DeSimone said. “We are here to get it started.”

Madison will also be involved in crafting an economic development plan that will create a unique identity for the town, set goals for the valley, quantitatively measure growth and, most importantly, give Maggie a singular, cohesive vision.

“Something that tells us if we are on the right path,” DeSimone said.

Maggie Valley was hit hard by the recession and has been criticized in the past for pinning all its hopes and dreams on Ghost Town in the Sky, a once-popular amusement park, which like the valley fell into decline. The park was in foreclosure for a few years before longtime resident Alaska Presley bought Ghost Town and vowed to revive it.

But, people cannot expect her to save Maggie and must find some other baskets to put their eggs in, DeSimone said.

“Alaska can’t do this by herself. She can’t carry the valley,” DeSimone said.

Presley was on hand at the meeting to update attendees on the amusement park, which she hopes to re-open around July 1. Presley will only open the first of the park’s three levels. The lowest level will include a zipline and refurbished versions of some of Ghost Town’s original rides.

“The progress there is good,” Presley said. “There is enough that people would enjoy it.”

The chair lift that takes visitors up the mountain to the park is nearly fixed, and work will soon begin on the incline railway, another mode of transportation up the mountainside. However, the railway will take at least five months to fix. Work has also begun on the zipline.

Workers are still in the process of digging wells to meet Ghost Town’s water supply needs and then will need to redo the park’s plumbing, which was damaged during the seasonal freeze and thaw. However, come hell or high water, Presley is confident that the mountain will re-open by mid-summer and that she will slowly be able to restore the other two levels of the park, which will feature an Old West Town and religious-themed elements.

In addition to the obvious benefits of tourism — jobs and revenue for the county — tourism dollars save Haywood County residents a few hundred dollars in taxes every year.

Steve Morse, a mathematics professor at the University of Tennessee, presented business owners and county tourism leaders with a faux jumbo check made out to “Each County Household.” The check was for $334.

Without tourism dollars, every household would be paying out that much more money in taxes each year.

Tourists are “temporary taxpayers,” said Morse, who spoke at a luncheon sponsored by the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority celebrating National Tourism Week.

“What a country! Where you can have people say, ‘Please come pay part of our taxes,’ and people say, ‘Sure,’” Morse said.

The tourism and hospitality industry constitute one-fifth of the jobs in Haywood County, Morse added.

“Tourism plays a large role in many people’s lives,” Morse said.

Even that truism seems like an understatement when looking at recent tourism spending numbers, which have rebounded back to pre-recession figures.

In 2007, $116.7 million was spent on tourism in Haywood County — only $400,000 more than in 2010.

“As we look forward, we see a bright future,” said Lynn Collins, executive director of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority.

One particular advantage that Haywood County, and Western North Carolina in general, have over other parts of the country is an abundance of adventure activities — kayaking, mountain biking, hiking and the like.

“Adventure tourism is hot as a firecracker,” Morse said.

Morse pointed out that the same perks that make Haywood County a great place to visit can turn those visitors into residents or business owners.

“Today’s visitor could tomorrow’s business investor,” Morse said.

And, although good schools, affordable housing, available transportation and low tax and crime rates are still important, the next generation of entrepreneurs is also looking for open spaces, “local, unique flavor,” a sense of community, diverse cultures and natural resources when finding a place to settle.

“They want to live in Mayberry,” Morse said.

With changes in technology, people will be able to work from pretty much anywhere, he said, and Haywood County should play up its attributes to draw in new residents and businesses.

“People will change to live and work in places with diverse cultures,” Morse said.

The next five years could include the construction of an adventure park, a canopy walk and another casino for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, according to a preliminary outline of its 2012 economic development plan.

Every five years, the Eastern Band creates an updated economic development plan that outlines what the tribe accomplished during the previous five years and its plans for the future.

Several items in the 2012 strategic plan are simply continuations of work started in 2007, such as diversifying its attractions.

With the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Hotel being its main draw, a number of Cherokee’s visitors are 21 years or older. To create greater family appeal, the tribe is looking into the possibility of adding a canopy walk  — a high-elevation nature stroll through the tree tops. The attraction would feature suspended bridges stretching from tree to tree and give visitors a bird’s eye view of the area.

“The environment, the mountains, the streams and everything are so important to Cherokee,” said Doug Cole, a strategic planner with the Eastern Band. “(The canopy walk) takes advantage of that; it doesn’t try to degrade it.”

A likely locale for the canopy walk would be near Mt. Noble in Birdtown, Cole said.

In addition to the walk, the tribe is also making plans to construct a family friendly adventure park, an idea that it has tossed around for a while. The park could include various activities, such as a zipline and climbing wall, as well as a water park. The facility would be open year-round, with some elements inside and some outside.

“There is an opportunity there for the kids and family market,” Cole said. “It could be something that all Western North Carolina could be proud of.”

After finding that project is indeed feasible and that there is enough demand, the Eastern Band then began looking into how it could finance its construction — something it is still figuring out. The park could cost between $90 million and $100 million, Cole estimated, calling the numbers a “pure guess.”

“It really depends upon … how much we want to build,” Cole said.

An adventure park would also help with another goal of the tribe — to diversify its job opportunities and revenue streams.

“I think diversifying the income from the tribe is very important. Right now, we depend on the casino quite a bit,” Cole said. “You don’t want to have all of your eggs in one basket.”

That is not to say that enrolled members are not grateful for the support the casino provides. In fact, the tribe has discussed expanding its gambling operations, not just within its current casino but also to another part of the reservations.

For a while, the tribe has discussed the possibility of building new casinos on other tribally owned lands. And now that the living gaming compact is looking more likely to pass, building a small-scale casino in Cherokee County is the gaming commission’s No. 1 priority, said Don Rose, a member of the commission. It would not be a full-fledged casino but would be more than a bingo hall, and Harrah’s would not necessarily be affiliated with the new casino.

“This would be a totally separate casino,” Rose said.

Although a large portion of the economic plan involves tourism, it also addresses quality of life for enrolled members.

The reservation only has one large commercial grocery, Food Lion, and no national retail stores. Many enrolled members must drive to the Walmart in Sylva for the simplest things.

“If you wanted to buy a tie or shirt, you would have to drive to Sylva and back,” Cole said. “We need to have that available.”

There is also no drug store, like a Walgreens or CVS, where enrolled members or even visitors can easily pick up a prescription when necessary, he said.

The tribe will also look into investing more into tribally owned businesses through operations such as the Sequoyah Fund.

The blueprint, formally called the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, helps the tribe when applying for federal monies.

Since 2007, when the last plan was drafted, the Eastern Band has received $3.37 million for economic development projects, states the report.

Mostly, however, the economic strategy plan is a map detailing what the Eastern Band hopes to achieve during the next half decade.

“The real reason we do this is to keep us on strategy on what we want to do during the next five years,” said Cole. “Hopefully by 2017, we can make a lot of that happen, too.”

It’s track record on seeing project through has been surprisingly good. Past CEDS projects include the construction of the Sequoyah National Golf Club, a movie theater, a skate park and smattering the reservation with painted bear statues, among others.

The tribe will spend this month prioritizing projects and developing action plans. A final draft of the economic development strategy will be submitted to the U.S. Economic Development Administration by the end of September.

Speak out

To voice your opinion, review the plan or find out information about public meetings regarding the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, visit

nctomorrow.org/cherokeequallaboundary.

The Jackson County farmers market had three or four vendors who regularly showed up each week to sell their homegrown goods in 2001.

For the most part, the growers would sit around, chew the fat and trade produce.

“It was kind of our farmer’s morning out,” said Cathy Arps, who runs Vegenui Garden with her husband Ron.

The vendors would make maybe a few sales during the day. However, mostly, people would drive-by the market, roll down their car windows and glance at the offerings before zipping off.

“It was very difficult,” Arps said. But, “The farmers of the farmers market hung on.”

Now, about a decade later, the number of vendors has more than septupled and the amount of customers has grown even more.

The Jackson County market is not an anomaly. The number of vendors at the Waynesville farmers market went from fewer than a dozen in 2008 to now more than 60, with crowds perusing all their options. Beeswax candles, goat’s milk soap, sauces and rubs, cheese and round out the traditional baskets and tables of produce.

“There is a tremendous movement underfoot to save your local farmers,” said Carol James, former president with the Haywood Historic Farmers Market.

Both markets are representative of a nationwide trend that spread during the last several years. Considerably more people are buying local.

“The farmers market is sort of a snapshot of the radical change,” Arps said.

The desire to buy local goes beyond food. People are growing tired of the mass-produced, dime-a-dozen riffraff made overseas that line the shelves of retail giants. Locally made is a hip alternative.

Looking to capitalize on the movement, Haywood County and the downtown Waynesville business district are finding ways to promote locally produced merchandise that is unique to the area as well as items made within the U.S. — which seem difficult to find when perusing the tags at any area department store.

Taking a cue from the Good Morning, America series “Made in America,” Buffy Phillips, executive director of the Waynesville Downtown Association, decided to find out what businesses in Waynesville’s downtown sell items crafted in Western North Carolina and in the U.S.

“I just thought it was time we came together and promoted it,” Phillips said. “I find that customers are asking. They want to know what is made in the USA and locally.”

Phillips has been compiling a list of downtown businesses with U.S. and locally made wares. Although American-made clothes are still difficult to find, people can find WNC-made jewelry at the Jeweler’s Workbench or buy dog treats at the Smoky Mountain Dog Bakery. High Country Home sells furniture and cabinets constructed in Waynesville and hardwood floors from Franklin. And, the local brews are taking off with Headwaters Brewing Company, Frog Level Brewery and soon at the Tipping Point. With the exception of a few items, most food necessities can be found around town — from the smoked tomato jam at Sunburst Trout Market to barbecue sauces to jams and salsa.

Phillips is distributing stacks of stickers and signs to businesses along the downtown Main Street strip that each can used to advertise whether they sell products made in the U.S.

Twigs and Leaves Art Gallery is already one step ahead of the curve with a map displayed in its window, showing where in the U.S. each of its products hails from — all but a handful are from within WNC.

“I would love to think that everybody on the street would have something made in North Carolina,” Phillips said.

And, in a couple of months, the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority will launch its own similar campaign “Homegrown in Haywood.” The logo of the advertising initiative is a needle inside of a fish, inside of a duclimer, inside of an artist’s palette, inside of an apple.

Visitors want to experience the local culture, buy things that are specific to the area and eat what the locals eat, said Lynn Collins, executive director of the Haywood TDA. The marketing campaign helps point people in the right direction and also advertise the things that make the county different.

Part of the movement in Western North Carolina is also about preserving Appalachian culture, which is why the dulcimer — a locally significant instrument — is included in the tourism agency’s logo.

In addition to food and art, there are blacksmiths who makes tools, woodworkers who build tables, soap makers, bookbinders, people who manufacture guns — all too numerous to count.

“Locavesting” catching on

People aren’t just purchasing more items grown, constructed and masterminded in Western North Carolina, but they are willing to invest in local ventures.

For example, when Annie’s Naturally Bakery closed late this year, 10 area residents pooled their money to help the popular Sylva joint reopen.

“I think this is a concept that makes a lot of sense to a lot of people,” said Frank Lockwood, an assistant professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Western North Carolina University. “I think we will find more and more examples of this locavesting as we figure out how to do it.”

Along the same vein, some area growers have begun selling season-long memberships to their farm’s bounty, guaranteeing an individual a portion of the crops that are harvested each week.

“It is basically like people buying a subscription to your product,” Arps said.

Although the products are slightly pricier than their grocery store counterparts, people are willing to pay that little extra for natural products without all the additives, preservatives and extra unnecessary stuff.

Jackson resident and farmer Jackie Hooper hasn’t heard any complaints about her reduced sugar apple butter-like spread. In fact, she said, less is what more people are looking for.

“People don’t seem to mind that there isn’t more sugar,” said Hooper, who also sells chicken, quail and rabbit, among other items. “They are actually glad because sugar is one of the things they are actually trying to cut down on.”

That sentiment hits on a big reason why people want to buy straight from the farmer rather than the grocery store. People are more health conscious compared to the past.

“They are really reading package labels,” said Hooper, of Shared Blessings Farm in Cullowhee. “They no longer want to buy it ready-made in a grocery store.”

In many cases, the product is also tastier, since it had a shorter distance to travel before it ended up on someone’s plate.

Robin Smith, of Lenoir’s Devon in Canton, is one of several cattle farmers in Haywood County whose focus is to deliver fresher, higher quality beef without a middleman.

“We were just really interested in selling a better product than the grocery stores had,” Smith said. “(The beef) doesn’t go from a big plant and have additives in it.”

In places like Western North Carolina, the movement only seems natural given the vast tracts of open land. There have always been farmers in the area, but after WWII, fewer Americans grew their own food or received produce from a nearby farm. And now, the nation is moving back toward its roots.

“There are now people that are willing to grow the products and make it available,” Lockwood said. “In the neck of the woods we live in … it’s something that makes a lot of sense.”

The dour economy has also played a role in national shift in mentality as people lost their jobs and saw manufacturing facilities move overseas, making buyers more conscious of where their purchases come from.

“I guess now with a loss of businesses and employees, we don’t want to lose anymore,” Phillips said.

Tee Coker and his company recently learned firsthand something they probably already suspected about creating brands and taglines for towns. Forget about pleasing everyone: it can be an insurmountable challenge to please anyone at all when it comes to developing exactly the right slogan for a community.

“It turned out a tagline wasn’t something Highlands either wanted or needed,” Coker said, perhaps reminded about Coca-Cola and its legendary public-relations disaster with “new Coke.”

Coker and his marketing consultant company, Arnette, Muldrow & Associates, were trying to convince Highlands’ leaders that the town had an upgraded image and needed a new slogan to match. Coker’s masterpiece — “Simply Stunning” — was destined for the same dustbin of history as new Coke, however.

Coker didn’t take the rejection personally, it should be noted. That’s just part of the job when your profession is developing taglines or slogans.

“It’s fun to do this for the most part,” Coker said. “But, it’s certainly challenging.”

Coker said that each community the company works with has its own personalities involved and various motivations at play for developing taglines. That can make reaching consensus difficult.

In Western North Carolina, quite a few communities have adopted a brand and slogan. Maggie Valley is “Can you come out and play?” Franklin is “Discover us.” Macon County is “Enjoy the beauty, discover the life.”

The challenge is coming up with a slogan or motto that highlights a community’s assets and creates an identity to distinguish it from other places. That can be difficult because everyone here, more or less, plays off our mountain locale.

In Haywood County, the tourism agency uses “See yourself in the Smokies.” Neighboring Cherokee is “Meet me in the Smokies.”

In local communities, the task of picking taglines has been taken up by marketing professionals, town officials, residents and wide assortments of tourism-oriented committees.

Community pride

In Western North Carolina, logos and slogans reflect the heritage, history and image of the region’s towns.

Big cities use big dollars to brand and create taglines. New York is “The city that never sleeps.” Chicago is the “Windy City.” Virginia is for lovers. Las Vegas is “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Austin is “Keep Austin weird.”

But, branding and taglines are not just for the big cities of the world. When any city, county or state adopts a tagline, slogan or motto, it’s pitching that destination as a place to visit, live or work.

“We wanted something understated and unique to Highlands,” said Ron Shaffner, design committee chairman for the Highlands Small Town Main Street Program. “‘Simply Stunning’ sounded like something that relates to weddings or diamonds — and that’s not Highlands. We felt ‘Simply Stunning’ might become ‘Simply Cliché’ after 10 years or so.”

Arnette, Muldrow & Associates led a series of roundtables in Highlands during two days in February. While the “Simply Stunning” slogan is a no-go, the design committee has pretty much settled on a suitably understated logo: an image of a tree simply baring the town’s name, “Highlands, North Carolina.”

“It turns out Highlands doesn’t really have to market itself aggressively so it isn’t that shocking that they don’t want a tagline. Highlands is a special case in many ways — there’s not really any other analogous communities in the Southeast,” Coker said.

The logo is simple and small enough to fit on a lapel pin or to go on letterheads or even on the sides of town vehicles.

The town might use its elevation — 4,118 feet — in branding efforts too, he said. The Highlands Chamber of Commerce already capitalizes on that claim to fame as the basis for its distinguishing slogan “Above it all.”

A changing community

“The tough thing about it is trying to make a tagline that is all things to all people,” said Matt Pegg, executive director of the Cherokee Chamber of Commerce.

Cherokee, as much as any community in WNC, is in transition. For decades the Cherokee Indian Reservation marketed itself as a family destination for cultural events. That’s still true, but now you also have Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Resort and such specialty niches as trout fishing on the Oconaluftee River.

Pegg said a good slogan must reflect the myriad nature of the offerings in a community such as Cherokee but not be so generic as to be useless.

“And there’s probably not another place you can go from the National Park to all the glitz and glamour of what will be at Harrah’s,” Pegg said, referring to the casino expansion and the new casino entrance under construction. Known as the rotunda, the new entrance that will feature shining five-story trees made of colored glass, with a 75-foot waterfall cascading down the middle and a 140-foot screen wrapping around the walls where choreographed light and surround-sound shows will be projected.

Pegg said committees and marketing professionals helped develop Cherokee’s taglines, including the currently in use “Meet me in the Smokies.”

“If it’s something we can do we try to do it internally, but we’ll certainly bring in groups to help, too,” Pegg said.

Heeding demographics

Until recently, neighboring Swain County like Cherokee played off of its position next to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. For several years, Bryson City used “base camp for adventure.” After reviewing visitor demographics, the town opted to change course, however.

Karen Wilmot, executive director of the Swain County Chamber of Commerce, said that it turned out the most important decision maker when it comes to trips to Swain County is actually 40-year-old women. The “base camp for adventure” was deemed too extreme to attract a wide cross section of visitors, particularly that imaginary 40-year-old woman.

“We do get a lot of younger folks, but we didn’t want to scare off that other demographic by saying we’re too extreme,” Wilmot said, saying she didn’t think most 40-year-old women were looking for freestyle kayaking events or to mountain bike at Tsali Recreation Area, two well known Swain County-based sports possibilities.

“We wanted to think about that armchair adventurer, too,” Wilmot said, saying the tourism agency wanted to include gentler outdoor adventuring such as walking up Deep Creek to see the waterfalls.

In the end, the tagline chosen was open ended: “My Bryson City is …. (you fill in the blank).” The message, and the photo accompanying it, changes according to the publication viewers being targeted — “My Bryson City is dazzling” might accompany an advertisement highlighting autumn color. “My Bryson City is the Dragon” could accompany a photo of a motorcyclist targeting a riding audience.

“It is an easily manipulated yet consistent message,” Wilmot said, adding that an advertising firm helped develop Bryson City’s changing tagline.

“We were all sort of thinking the same things, and we knocked ideas around in a creative meeting then took a couple ideas to the board,” she said.

Bryson City is also an example of how difficult it can be to rid yourself of an old tagline you might have outgrown. For years the town went by “unhurried, unspoiled and uncommon,” and in fact, there’s still a sign on old U.S. 19 coming into town boasting this fact. Brad Walker, a former town mayor who’s long been involved in the hotel business in WNC, said that particular tagline of “unhurried, unspoiled and uncommon” was developed by the tourism agency in Swain County some 10 or 15 years ago.

“We were trying to figure out what the town is. And we decided the biggest thing we are is that we are in the Smokies, and we are the opposite of Gatlinburg,” Walker said.

So “unhurried, unspoiled and uncommon” really meant not Gatlinburg, Walker said.

Asheville, formerly “Altitude affects attitude,” has also undergone a change that reflects the city’s transition and newest image as a center of all-things-hip. Asheville is now “Any way you like it.”

Taglines and identities can be funny things. Some communities — in this case, Bryson City once again — can be downright protective of them. Bryson City recently took issue to the wording on a public art piece being installed on Main Street in Waynesville.

Donations are helping erect a replica of a historic arch that once spanned Waynesville’s main street, proclaiming the town as the “Eastern Entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”

That wording was too long for the artistic replica, however, so instead it will bear the words “Gateway to the Smokies.”

Not long after news stories ran about the arch, Waynesville Town Manager Lee Galloway received a phone call from Bryson City Town Manager Lee Callicutt regarding the wording on the arch. It was a slogan that Bryson City has used on its seal and police department badges for decades.

Callicutt had been directed to pass the concern of the Town of Bryson City onto Waynesville. The concern was duly noted but nothing came out of it.

Deciding around the table

Advertising agencies and companies can spend a fortune writing the right tagline. Small towns don’t have that kind of money. So sometimes they simply borrow.

Macon County’s current tagline, “Enjoy the beauty, discover the life” is a tweaked version of one a small business there was using, said Linda Harbuck, longtime executive director of the Franklin Area Chamber of Commerce.

Committees are used in Macon County to decide on taglines, saving on dollars and tapping local talent when it comes to defining the exact image to project. Harbuck said that community has had a number of different taglines during the years. The longest running one was “gem capitol of the world,” a play off of the large number of gem mining operations in Macon County. Macon County also has used “Mountain treasures, simple pleasures.”

“We don’t have any scientific ways of coming up with them,” Harbuck said. “A lot of things have just come from us sitting around the table talking.”

That’s been true in Maggie Valley, too, said Teresa Smith, executive director of the chamber of commerce there.

“We’ve used several recently,” she said. “We are trying to play off the park and being in the great outdoors.”

Maggie Valley uses a marketing committee to come up with choices. During the past several years, the town has used “Maggie’s calling.” Last year, they used “Far enough away yet close enough to play.” This year, it was tweaked to “Can you come out and play?”

Smith said it is indeed difficult to come up with taglines that make all those involved happy. Maggie Valley tourism leaders hold several meetings a year to do just that, usually working around a theme to help define the image Maggie Valley wants to project.

Jackson County recently has scaled down its slogan to focus on a single image it wants to project: mountains. The Jackson County Chamber of Commerce recently has been just using “N.C. Mountains.” It has also used “Mountain lovers love Jackson County” during the past few years, and previously used “A change of altitude,” said Julie Spiro, executive director of the chamber of commerce.

Brand vs. tagline

Betty Huskins, a longtime marketing expert with Ridgetop Associates, makes a clear distinction between brands and taglines. A brand, Huskins said, “is who you are in other people’s minds. A lot of people feel they’ve developed a brand when they’ve gotten a slogan or tagline, but you can’t just choose that.”

You can’t, in other words, choose the perception people have of you simply by picking a catchy slogan.

Huskins said ideally in marketing “you have to see who you are and build what you want to be.”

Huskins said the best taglines, as she was taught and still believes, should be no more than three words (think Highlands’ “Above it all.”)

A tagline, she said, should ultimately define “who you are and what you do.”

Lynn Collins, executive director of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority, said a tagline has to generate an emotional response.

“You may think it is wonderful, but if people don’t respond to it, it doesn’t do much good,” she said. “If you have a really good slogan they know where you are talking about. It needs to appeal to people on an emotional level.”

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority is currently using “See yourself in the Smokies.” The previously used tagline, “where the sun rises on the Smokies,” is still used too on logos, Collins said.

A few years ago, Haywood County made the tagline switch to “See yourself in the Smokies” on advertising to try to get prospective visitors to picture themselves doing such activities as skiing or hiking.

“We did it to get people to put themselves in that photo and imagine doing those activities,” Collins said. “It’s just another format of using the Smokies and to evoke that emotional response.”

Like Huskins, Collins makes a distinction between branding and taglines. Haywood County’s brand, she said, “is our natural scenic beauty.” The slogan is to try to get people to come and participate in that great scenic beauty in Haywood County.

Current slogans:

Bryson City: My Bryson City is ___

Canton: Where the mountains kiss the sky

Cashiers: Nature’s design for enjoyment

Cherokee: Meet me in the Smokies

Franklin: Discover us

Haywood County: See yourself in the Smokies

Highlands: Above it all

Maggie Valley: Can you come out and play?

Macon County: Enjoy the beauty, discover the life

Facebook-submitted slogans, courtesy of our readers

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Departing from the normal talks of budget cuts and tightening belts, Haywood County commissioners asked a group of tourism and town leaders how the county could pitch in to help bring visitors or new second-home owners to the county.

The commissioners met with members of the county tourism board and elected officials from Canton, Maggie Valley and Waynesville, among others, last week to discuss tourism and how the county can attract more residents or second-home owners.

“I would be interested in the county putting money into something,” said Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick. “How can the county help?”

One option Kirkpatrick offered up was commercial advertising. The county could look into a commercial that would collectively market Haywood County to people in other parts of the U.S.

“I would be interested in doing something like that if it’s in the best interest of everybody,” Kirkpatrick said.

“We would be interested in the county putting money into something too,” came the quick reply of Alice Aumen, a board member with the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority.

Aumen’s swift acquiescence to the county tossing in a few shekels drew chuckles from other leaders seated around the large square table.

The trick is getting people here, not so much selling them on the place — the area generally speaks for itself once people come to visit, several attendees stated.

“It all starts with a visit. It all starts with them being a tourist here,” said Lynn Collins, executive director of the TDA. Collins said that many retirees and second-home owners were initially tourists in the county before they were residents.

The meeting last week, billed as a roundtable discussion, was a chance for county commissioners to get up to speed on the tourism authority’s marketing campaign and strategy.

Jennifer Duerr, a member of the tourism board, suggested marketing Haywood County as centrally located between Gatlinburg and Asheville. People could stay in Haywood County and easily make daytrips to either location, she said.

Duerr also emphasized the county and towns should use more pictures and videos of the area. It is their best form of advertisement but often is under-utilized.

“It is so simple,” Duerr said. “This gorgeous area has been given to us like a gift, and we always walk away from that.”

The Tourism Development Authority recently purchased its own film equipment and has been shooting video to use in its advertising efforts.

As discussions dove deeper, several leaders noted that it is difficult to market “Haywood County” per se when few people know where it is or even that it exists. Out-of-town visitors are more likely to recognize Maggie Valley, many stated.

“Well, we are glad to let you use (the name) Maggie Valley,” half-joked Maggie Mayor Ron DeSimone.

Haywood County as a whole should build upon the efforts of places, such as Maggie Valley, Waynesville and Lake Junaluska, which have name recognition nationwide.

Ben Glover, owner of Maggie Mountain Rentals, said that he shied away from naming his business Haywood Mountain Rentals because he feared it would attract fewer customers.

“Haywood County, we were scared of and that is kind of sad,” Glover said.

Glover said a concerted effort may be able to change that.

“The term ‘Haywood County’ needs to be collectively promoted,” said Glover, a member of the TDA board.

Wintertime recreation was also a particular topic of concern at the meeting. Beyond Cataloochee Ski Area, the list of activities is meager.

“In the wintertime, we are truly at a loss for things to tell them to do,” Collins said. “We do have a shortage of things for children to do.”

Aumen agreed, adding that the county should focus on attracting entire families that can come back generation after generation.

County Commissioner Mike Sorrells suggested creating more indoor events to occupy people during the cold winter months and offering package deals for travelers.

Several leaders said that the towns are not adequately communicating what they have to offer to tourism leaders who tout the activities as reasons to visit Haywood County.

“I think that is everybody’s shortcoming,” said Canton Town Manager Al Matthews. “We can’t fault (tourism promoters) for not telling (visitors) about something that they don’t know exists.”

A task force studying whether Jackson County should revamp its approach to luring tourists began laying the groundwork last week to merge its two separate tourism agencies into one.

In coming months, the task force will wrestle with the best make-up and structure for a single countywide tourism development authority, which will control roughly $440,000 generated by a 3-percent tax on overnight lodging.

Jackson County currently has one tourism agency representing the Cashiers area and one tourism agency representing Jackson County as a whole. Supporters of that concept have argued Cashiers needs its own tourism agency — with control of its own dollars — to cater to its own unique tourism needs. Opponents have argued that having two groups is a waste of money and resources and is less effective.

Clifford Meads, manager of High Hampton Inn in Cashiers, suggested a makeup for the new entity that guarantees Cashiers a nearly equal number of seats on the board.

Meads tendered a proposal calling for an 11-member board, with five seats designated for tourism representatives from the Cashiers area. Specifically, he suggested six representatives from lodging businesses, three of which would hail from Cashiers; one tourism-related business representative from Cashiers and one from Sylva; one chamber of commerce representative from Cashiers and one from Sylva; plus a county commissioner designee. A chair would be selected from within the group.

The proposal received nods of general agreement from other task force members, though the exact makeup is clearly a long way from being decided.

Robert Jumper, manager of Travel and Tourism for Cherokee and chairman of the Jackson County Travel and Tourism Authority, emphasized that he believes it critically important that the chamber directors be on the future tourism development authority board, too. They currently serve on the Cashiers and Jackson County boards that are in existence.

“From my perspective, I saw a huge value in having the executive directors there to give us the staff perspective,” Jumper said. “In some capacity there needs to be that input.”

For now, Jackson County most likely will temporarily merge its two tourism agencies into one. There is a sense of urgency following revelations that Jackson County is out of compliance with a state law mandating that a single entity oversee room tax expenditures. Moving forward with a temporary merger for now will give county leaders until next year to hammer out the specific makeup of a permanent, future tourism development authority for the county, County Commission Chairman Jack Debnam said.

While a task force comprised primarily of lodging owners has been appointed to make recommendations, county commissioners ultimately have the final say. A vote on combining the two tourism boards into an interim tourism development authority is likely to take place at the county commissioners’ meeting Monday.

Attorney Jay Coward said, like Debnam, he believed that the county needed to come into compliance with state law quickly and continue hammering out actual details about the new board.

“I think what y’all are doing is exactly what you ought to be doing,” he assured task force members in their discussions at last week’s meeting.

Look to the east?

Having to balance competing geographic interests isn’t unique to Jackson County. Haywood County, for example, had an ongoing tug of war over tourism dollars between Waynesville and Maggie Valley for years. To resolve these differences, the tourism board there was expanded from nine to 12 members about four years ago.

The board is representative of various geographic areas in the county.

Additionally, a portion of tourism tax dollars are earmarked to individual communities to spend as they see fit, yet another effort aimed at ending the tug of war and turf battles over the room tax money. Of the county’s 4 percent room tax, 1 percent is earmarked for special tourism initiatives in the different geographic areas of the county.

The special pot of money is divvied up among the county’s five “zip code” communities based on where it was collected, said Lynn Collins, executive director of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority. The TDA collects and administers the money, but each community has a subcommittee that accepts and review applications for dollars. The subcommittees make recommendations to the full TDA, which pretty much rubberstamps them, Collins said

“It seems to be working well,” she said, adding that the communities have “flexibility” to spend on things they feel are important and can pinpoint “what’s most needed as is related to tourism. It’s kind of like a grant program,” Collins said in explanation.

Meads said he believes the mandate for a single tourism development authority could be a good thing for Jackson County because “it forces us to come to agreement” on various tourism-related issues.

“We can craft something for ourselves” and not be “pigeon-holed” with another county’s format, Meads added.

As in Haywood County, composition of the new board in Jackson County will be key.

How we got here from there

Jackson County for months has been struggling to sort out how best to spend its room tax dollars, and how to best balance competing geographic interests in the county.

Jackson County currently has one tourism agency representing the Cashiers area and one tourism agency representing Jackson County as a whole. The members oversee the annual 3 percent room tax money collected from the lodging industry. The amount isn’t small potatoes: each year about $440,000 is collected, which is pumped back in to tourism promotion.

Seventy-five percent of the room tax generated in the Cashiers area currently goes back to that community’s tourism group to spend on its own marketing. Supporters of that concept have argued Cashiers needs its own tourism agency — with control of its own dollars — to cater to its own unique tourism needs. Opponents have argued that having two groups is a waste of money and resources.

Whether to merge the county’s two tourism groups into a single countywide entity has been a source of ongoing controversy since last year. The debate essentially ended earlier this month, however, when the county discovered that its current structure doesn’t comply with state law.

The county, by seeking an increase in its room tax rate from 3 to 6 percent last year from the General Assembly, triggered the mandate to form a single tourism development authority. The state has sought uniformity in how tourism boards operate, a requirement that is imposed whenever counties come to the state seeking a tax increase as Jackson did.

A group of new owners has taken the reins of Nantahala Outdoor Center, a generational milestone for the outfitter that has grown from a small fleet of rafts in the early 1970s to a diversified multi-million operation under the leadership of its two founders.

The recent sale has transferred majority control to a new group of owners — six businessmen from the Atlanta area who are merging their love of outdoor recreation with their business and investment acumen. One of those investors is NOC’s own Sutton Bacon, who has been the CEO for five years.

“All the investors including myself have young children and want to expose their own families to the outdoor lifestyle,” Bacon said. “It is a terribly exciting time. We see NOC as being uniquely positioned to reconnect American families to the outdoors.”

Forty years ago, it would have been a long shot to predict the scrappy operation launched by a couple of river rats would spawn a booming whitewater industry in Western North Carolina and catapult the Nantahala into an international paddling destination.

The storied legacy of those founders, Horace Holden and Payson and Aurelia Kennedy, will continue at NOC. They will retain partial but now minority ownership of NOC and keep their seats on the company’s board of directors.

While they plan to stick around and see that their founding philosophy and vision for NOC lives on, they are now entering their 80s and were ready to take a step back.

As NOC celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, the new owners plan on being around for the next 40, Bacon said.

“There is no divestment prospect. We aren’t thinking ‘let’s shape the company up and sell it in seven years for more than we bought it for,’” Bacon said. “This is a long-term hold.”

Bacon deserves credit for brokering the deal. He tapped old friends from the Atlanta business circles he once traveled in as a management consultant. Those friends in turn brought a couple more to the table, ultimately amassing a group of six like-minded investors.

The identity of all the investors isn’t public for now, but Bacon ticked off a quick list of their business backgrounds and expertise. Their collective resumes include investment banking, law, private equity, marketing and real estate experts.

As a true test of their mettle, the investors spent a week at NOC last year going through raft guide training school, getting wet and learning first hand what the frontline of NOC is all about.

By all accounts, the investors weren’t the only ones doing their due diligence during the year-long courtship. Likewise, the Kennedys and Holdens, intent on finding suitors who shared their philosophy, were sizing up the investors.

“The company intentionally wanted to bring on values-aligned investors,” Bacon said. “We wanted people to invest in the company, not just buy the company. I think our founders wanted to preserve their legacy and their heritage.”

The match is probably as good as it gets: businessmen willing and able to personally invest millions of dollars in a river outfitter don’t come along every day, especially ones who are philosophically vested in what NOC is all about.

NOC promotes individualism and the lifestyle of “work hard, play hard,” Bacon said.

For Bacon, his increased ownership share along with his continued role as CEO brings a lifelong passion full-circle. Before he was even big enough to lift his own kayak on top of the car, Bacon made regular weekend pilgrimages from Atlanta to kayak on the Nantahala thanks to an indulgent mother.

“NOC was my absolute favorite place on the entire earth,” Bacon said.

That drove him to cash in the big-city life and fast-paced business climate of Atlanta for life in Western North Carolina and a chance to steer the place he idolized as a child.

“It is an emotional connection I have had since a child,” Bacon said. “It was a very deliberate decision. It is a lifestyle.”

ESOP now NOC history

The new investors mark another type of transition for NOC: it will no longer be largely employee-owned.

Money put up by the investors allowed NOC to buy out the remnants of an employee stock plan the company had operated under for three decades.

The ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) had once been a hallmark of NOC.

“The company founders had a vision of employee participation in the company’s success from the very beginning,” Bacon said.

It was economically advantageous, but it had a larger social purpose.

“To foster a sense of esprit de corps, so staff would go the extra mile,” Bacon said.

For years, NOC wore its employee-owned status as a badge of honor.

“‘Employee-owned company’ was on all its letterhead and stationary,” Bacon said. “It was a significant cultural piece of NOC. It was something NOC was known for.”

But, NOC began phasing out the ESOP around 2002 when new legal and reporting requirements were imposed in the wake of Enron and Worldcom scandals.

“Regulations became extremely onerous,” Bacon said, and costly to administer.

While no new employees could buy in, those who already owned company shares through the ESOP remained on the books. At the height of participation, several hundred employees were enrolled in the ESOP and accounted for two-thirds of the company’s ownership. But recently the numbers had dwindled to just 60, most whom didn’t even work at NOC anymore.

“It no longer served its intended social or economic purpose,” Bacon said. “It was literally just costing the company money to keep the plan going. It was significant.”

At the time of the recent buyout, employee-owned stock accounted for about one-third of the company’s total ownership. Of those who still owned NOC stock, some receive a “significant” pay out, Bacon said.

“It has been a fantastic investment,” Bacon said of the ESOP. “It has outpaced in many years the stock market.”

NOC has 200 year-round full-time employees, but that swells to as many as 900 during peak season.

Of its huge seasonal workforce, about half are purely transient, mostly college students looking for summer jobs.

But, NOC also enjoys a core base of regular seasonal workers who return year after year, with just a three- to four-month hiatus in the winter.

“They are reliable and consistent and awesome and what makes NOC NOC,” Bacon said of their returning seasonal workers. “Even without the ESOP, NOC’s unique guest-centric culture will continue.”

NOC looks ahead to another 40 years

Nantahala Outdoor Center plans to build new on-site lodging on their campus in the Nantahala Gorge, thanks to working capital put up by a new team of investors.

Plans are still in the very early stages and will be developed during the coming year as part of a forward-looking strategic development process. The move will help NOC position itself as a full-service tourism destination and diversify its market.

NOC owns 450 acres on the river, but the footprint of its campus is only about 60 acres currently.

“We have a significant development opportunity. We are not landlocked in any way,” CEO Sutton Bacon said, despite otherwise being surrounded by national forest service land in Swain County.

NOC currently has lodging for about 200 people in bunkhouse style accommodations and mid-scale hotel rooms. The additional lodging will help NOC cater to a new demographic of tourist.

NOC also plans to invigorate its outdoor adventure line, not only in its traditional paddling arena but also in mountain biking, fly-fishing, outdoor photography, wilderness skills and other areas. NOC has already made forays into these new offerings over the past decade and plans to further ramp up its offerings as an outfitter of all things outdoors.

In the same vein, NOC will re-launch a line of guided international adventure travel excursions.

NOC has also seen success in two new outdoor retail storefronts, one in Gatlinburg and one in Asheville inside the Grove Park Inn, where guests can shop for outdoor gear and apparel as well as book outdoor adventure trips. NOC plans to capitalize on its well-known brand to augment the retail sector.

The company plans to bring in a consultant to help lead brainstorming sessions as it develops plans to carry NOC into the future.

“These are the things we know are going to be on the list, but there will probably be others,” Bacon said.

The state is forcing Jackson County’s hand when it comes to forming a single entity to oversee how tourism tax dollars are spent.

Jackson County has two tourism agencies — one representing the Cashiers area and one for Jackson County as a whole — that oversee room tax money collected by the lodging industry. Whether to merge the two into a single countywide entity has been a source of controversy since last year, prompting the formation of a task force to study the issue.

That may be for naught, however, since the county recently learned its current structure is out of compliance with state law.

It seems the county inadvertently triggered the mandate when it sought an increase in its room tax rate from 3 to 6 percent last year. Doing so required a special bill in the General Assembly. That same bill also required Jackson County to form a single tourism development authority.

While the county has held off on enacting the room tax hike, the county nonetheless was obliged to follow through on changing the structure of its tourism boards, according to County Attorney Jay Coward.

Cashiers tourism leaders have resisted attempts to do away with their separate tourism arm, which gets 75 percent of the room tax generated in the Cashiers area to spend on its own marketing. They argue that Cashiers needs its own tourism agency — with its own funding stream — to cater to its own unique visitor demographic apart from the county as a whole.

Those who supported a merger believe it would be more effective, eliminating the duplication and competition that currently exists between the two entities and putting the money to wiser use under a single tourism strategy.

It would seem the argument is now moot.

County Commissioner Mark Jones, who represents the Cashiers area and voted against the original proposal, said he does not believe the community will resist a unified Tourism Development Authority after all.

“But it’s going to depend on what the state recommends and what the makeup would be,” Jones said. “(There must be) a fair representation from all over the county.”

A county-appointed advisory group made up primarily of lodging owners has been meeting every two weeks to discuss this very issue. Jones said they are within two meetings or so of returning to commissioners with recommendations about the formation of a new group.

“There’s no template,” Jones said about statewide tourism efforts. “We thought we’d find something out there to serve as a good template to guide us, but it’s not out there.”

Instead, Jones said, each county in North Carolina more or less creates how to best manage tourism-generated tax dollars.

That is precisely why the legislation triggered the formation of a new unified tourism board: the state has sought uniformity in how tourism boards operate, a requirement that is imposed whenever counties come to the state seeking a tax increase.

“I hope you don’t mind some friendly constructive criticism of the bill,” Coward wrote Trina Griffin this week, a staff attorney for the N.C. General Assembly. “I understand that the plan is to legislate on a case-by-case basis a consistent statewide system of tourism promotion. The obvious suggestion for a change to save other counties and towns from being confused by future bills would be to pass one statewide law.”

Coward, as of late Tuesday, had not received a reply from the state.

David Huskins, who heads a consulting group that is helping Jackson County develop an economic development plan and who’s worked with them on this issue, said there’s no question Jackson County must put a single tourism development authority in place.

Huskins said Asheville and Buncombe County were the first in the state to seek occupancy tax legislation from the state. By the mid 1980s, the trend of enacting a room tax had pushed into the western end of North Carolina. But oversight in some cases was loose because of the varying structures of different tourism boards overseeing the money that was raised.

“Over the years, some of the local governments were diverting funds outside of tourism – the tax was originally conceived for tourism promotion and marketing. But, a lot of local governments were saying if they needed a new ambulance, well tourists get hurt, too, and we have to provide services for them,” Huskins said.

That interpretation diluted the intent of the room tax — namely to provide a stream of revenue to further tourism — and created such an outcry from the tourism industry, the General Assembly by the mid 1990s moved to set up uniform guidelines.

“If you want an increase, you come under the new guidelines,” Huskins said flatly.

Commissioners did not decide on when exactly to form their new tourism development authority. Chairman Jack Debnam indicated a required public hearing could be held as soon as the April 16 meeting. The advisory committee meets this Thursday. Coward is expected to detail more of his findings regarding the state legislation.

Franklin’s planned motorcycle rally hit a major roadblock this week when town leaders balked at shutting down a portion of Main Street for up to four days at the height of the tourist season.

The rally had been lauded by town leaders and tourism players for its potential economic boost, but organizers of the rally now want a larger section of Main Street closed and for more days than initially thought. The rally is scheduled for Aug. 17 to 19.

Promoter Scott Cochran appeared at a town meeting this week and asked the town to shutdown Main Street from Riverview to Harrison Avenue from the night of Thursday, Aug. 16, through Sunday, Aug. 19. Plus he requested the option of shutting down even more of the main thoroughfare if larger crowds dictated doing so.

Cochran has estimated up to 4,000 bikers could take part in the Smoky Mountain Rumble. Franklin’s population is 3,600. As the situation stands now, a bandstand is intended to be the focal point for rally entertainment and good times: It would be placed directly in front of a funeral home, prompting an additional tide of unhappy concerns and questions from town leaders.

Members of Franklin’s Tourism Development Authority, where the idea for a rally germinated, have talked up the event as a means of attracting dollars and visitors into downtown Franklin. The town’s tourism board awarded the rally a grant of nearly $15,000 to help promote the rally.

Town aldermen appeared reluctant to shut down Main Street for such a long stretch, however.

Additionally, Alderman Billy Mashburn flatly told Cochran that the discretion to close or not close more of Main Street would not be left to them, either, if he has his druthers.

“And I’m not willing to shutdown Main Street for this many days,” he added for good measure.

Alderman Bob Scott, who has been a vocal critic of what he’s characterized as a lack of planning regarding such a large rally, also protested such an extended shutdown. He then questioned why, in his view, the promoters had been so slow to come before the town board.

“This is not in the best interest in Franklin,” Scott said of the shutdown and the rally in general. “Why are you just now coming before this town board, right now, when this has the potential of disrupting this town for three days?”

Cochran apologized, talked of the constraints of running a small business, then acknowledged that he and his wife should have been on the agenda in January or so.

Planning for the rally has been underway for at least six months on the part of Franklin’s tourism agency.

Scott also raised questions about safety at the rally and about overtime costs for extra officers to police the event. Alderman Ferrell Jamison pointed out that if Main Street and side streets are shutdown to accommodate the bikers then town police would be out in force.

“These are one way streets and the city police would have to route traffic around,” Jamison said. “You’d have to have (officers) at every traffic light — that would be a nightmare.”

Jamison said that he wanted to see maps and a plan in place to handle emergency calls in the town in the event the streets are closed as requested.

Franklin lawyer Russell Bowling, who was in the audience at the town board meeting, also protested such an extended closing during the regular workweek. His office is located in the area being targeted for the rally.

The placement of the bandstand in front of the funeral home particularly concerned Mayor Joe Collins. The placement is desirable, according to the organizers, because then bikers could drink alcoholic beverages from the across-the-street Motor Company Grill. Collins said the odds were high that a visitation or a funeral would be taking place at least on one of those evenings. He did not seem reassured by the promoters’ promises to turn off the music and shut down the party while that possible event unfolded.

Alderman Sissy Pattillo defended the rally plans. She urged the board “to work together” for the good of Franklin to make the event successful.

“We’ll never know until we go through this one time,” Pattillo said. “If we go through this one time and it doesn’t work, that’s it.”  

Cochran was asked to return to the board again with more detailed plans. The promoter indicated he likely would scale down his request.

Scott publicly chastised his fellow town board members in an email sent following the meeting, basically saying he’d told them so — which, in fact, he had.

“For six or seven months I have been raising concerns about the biker rally and the operation of the Franklin TDA,” Scott wrote. “I have repeatedly brought these concerns to my fellow board members and the mayor and not a one of them has responded. Then, when it was obvious that the promoters of the Smoky Mountain Rumble and the TDA could not answer even basic questions about this rally … board members acted like they had never heard there might be problems.”