Haywood TDA looks at tourism, post-Helene
A birds-eye view of downtown Waynesville. A Shot Above photo
Despite Hurricane Helene’s disruption of the region’s tourism industry, the entity charged with collecting and spending room occupancy taxes in Haywood County to promote visitation has presented a 10-year master plan outlining a comprehensive strategy for sustainable tourism development.
“Change is coming, whether we’re ready for it or not, and so if we can do our best to have a plan, we can hopefully manage that change so that Haywood County keeps what makes Haywood County so special and that we can hopefully get the right people to come visit us and keep our small businesses running,” Corrina Ruffieux, executive director of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority, told county commissioners Feb. 3.
This plan, developed through extensive collaboration with a 17-member steering committee staffed by local leaders, industry professionals and representatives from each local government in the county, serves as a roadmap for maximizing Haywood County’s tourism potential while ensuring economic growth and environmental preservation.
A major component of the planning process involved broad community engagement, incorporating input from business owners, local stakeholders and residents. Through in-person focus groups, one-on-one interviews, surveys and workshops with elected officials, the committee began to formulate the strengths and challenges of Haywood County’s tourism landscape.
Several important challenges emerged from the research, including audience engagement. The county experiences strong repeat visitation rates, but demographics skew older, according to Ruffieux. Additionally, Haywood County faces seasonal tourism imbalances, with peak activity concentrated in summer and fall, creating a need to develop strategies that distribute visitor traffic more evenly throughout the year.
“By us working together, we can try to target younger families, engage them to come, see what they want to do and also potentially shift our seasons so that we’re keeping our businesses full and our employees working year-round,” she said.
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Another significant challenge involves accommodation modernization, as many traditional lodging options in the county are dated and struggle to compete with the immense popularity of short-term rentals.
At the same time, there are plenty of development opportunities, particularly in expanding water-based recreation, enhancing greenway access and creating more indoor attractions to address the seasonal imbalance.
To tackle these challenges, HCTDA structured its plan around four key strategic pillars. The first focuses on strengthening awareness and perception of Haywood County as a premier tourism destination. A new branding initiative, Visit Haywood, has been launched alongside a marketing campaign, aiming to highlight the county’s authentic charm and attract high-value visitor segments.
This effort also includes strategies to convert day-trippers into overnight guests. Commission Chair Kevin Ensley remarked that those visitors — or their descendants — sometimes end up becoming permanent residents.
“… I meet new people that come here and move here, and I always ask them how they found out about us, and a lot of it is because they vacationed here at some point in time,” Ensley said. “A fella told me one time his grandfather was here, he’s like 70 years old now and he wanted to move here … because when he was a teenager he worked at the Balsam Inn.”
The second pillar emphasizes diversifying tourism offerings to enhance visitor experiences. Initiatives include developing new family-friendly attractions that can also benefit residents.
“If we make Haywood County a better place to visit, we also make it a better place to live,” Ruffieux said.
The plan integrates tourism into broader county redevelopment efforts, such as the revitalization of the Canton mill site, which was recently sold to a developer who wants to create a mixed-use environment comprised of commercial, light industrial and residential components.
Environmental sustainability and conservation take center stage in the third pillar, which prioritizes destination stewardship. Plans include forming a destination stewardship committee, implementing a tourism impact monitoring system and enhancing visitor management strategies to balance tourism growth with environmental preservation. Given the county’s dependence on outdoor recreation, these efforts are vital to maintaining the region’s natural appeal while fostering responsible tourism practices.
The fourth pillar focuses on strengthening the TDA itself and deepening community engagement. This involves expanding funding sources, improving tourism advocacy and forging stronger partnerships with local businesses and government entities. By fostering collaboration, HCTDA aims to ensure that tourism development benefits not just visitors but also residents, reinforcing a shared commitment to economic prosperity and cultural preservation.
The master plan was “about 98% complete,” said Ruffieux, at the end of September 2024, just as Helene presented new, unforeseen challenges for local leaders. Data presented by Ruffieux shows that for October and November 2024, occupancy tax collections flatlined after another year of record-setting revenues. October, typically the peak of the fall tourism season, saw a roughly 40% decrease in expected collections.
To recognize and adapt to the disruptions, the TDA paused the master plan and completed an additional, interim recovery transition plan for October 2024 through September 2026, balancing short-term recovery actions with the long-term goals outlined in the master plan.
“What we did do is we realized the master plan implementation is going to have to shift until we can recover a little bit more fully from Helene and some of the priorities that we thought were number ones are probably fours or fives, and the fours or fives are now number ones,” Ruffieux said.
Beyond long-term planning, TDA has actively supported the local tourism industry through seasonal events and grant initiatives. The upcoming 2025 weekend event schedule includes attractions such as the Cool Jazz Concert at HART, the Torch Run at Cataloochee Ski Area, the Visit Haywood Ice Stroll in Waynesville and various winter sports and cultural events.
