Amid tourism slide, marketing muscle fuels Haywood rebound
Western North Carolina is still suffering from the false notion that Helene-damaged businesses haven’t yet reopened.
File photo
Despite a decline in room occupancy tax revenue, the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority is celebrating a banner year for its signature winter event while doubling down on aggressive promotional campaigns and strategic long-term investments aimed at driving off-season traffic and insulating the county from mixed national trends in tourism spending.
“No surprise, we are slightly down from the prior fiscal year, which we have all been tracking that since [Hurricane] Helene,” HCTDA Executive Director Corrina Ruffieux said. “So far, through May, we’re down just shy of 10%, which is about what we had expected, and we are working very hard to counteract that.”
On Aug. 4, Ruffieux presented her 2024 annual report to the Haywood County Board of Commissioners, highlighting a mix of accomplishments and challenges amid a shifting tourism landscape. Although financial collections from room occupancy taxes are down 9.94% compared to the same period last year, some key metrics suggest a deeper story of resilience, reinvention and renewed alignment with the county’s Destination Master Plan.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the numbers surrounding the second annual “Visit Haywood Ice Festival Weekend,” held earlier this year across all five municipalities.
According to visitor survey data and analytics presented by the TDA, total ticket sales jumped 34% year over year, from 2,487 in 2024 to 3,327 in 2025, including a 34% increase in adult tickets and a 49% increase in child ticket estimates.
Survey data from 207 festivalgoers showed that 26% were overnight visitors from outside Haywood County, while 24% were day-trippers. Only half of attendees identified as local, and some came from as far away as Tampa and Miami. That’s a critical point for the HCTDA, which has been trying to extend the reach of marketing efforts beyond county lines to draw new dollars into the region.
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The strategy appears to be working. Of those who stayed overnight for the Ice Fest, 40% spent two nights in the area, with another 23% spending one. All told, the estimated room-night demand associated with the event topped 885. Ruffieux said 44% of visitors shopped in local stores and 51% ate at local restaurants.
“That’s the number one reason we do events like this, is to drive visitors to our local businesses, to invest back in them,” she said.
Using the industry-standard Event Impact Calculator, HCTDA pegged the total business sales generated by Ice Fest at $566,086, supporting 138 jobs and contributing more than $18,000 in local tax revenue. Those figures represent a meaningful increase over last year’s totals and suggest that winter events, long viewed as risky due to seasonality, are now central to Haywood’s year-round tourism portfolio.
Much of that success has been driven by data. HCTDA’s marketing strategies continue to evolve with help from AirDNA, a vacation rental analytics firm that tracks regional trends, booking patterns and lead times. Haywood’s data can be benchmarked against other Western North Carolina counties, including Swain, Jackson, Macon and Transylvania.
Damage to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Interstate 40 affected visitation in 2024 and early 2025. File photo
The TDA’s new “Open Haywood” campaign, which launched June 23 and runs through Sept. 30, saturates digital platforms like Google, Meta, YouTube, Expedia and VRBO. Its main goal is to drive mid-week overnight bookings of two nights or more by offering visitors digital gift cards — “Elk Bucks” — that can be spent at more than 100 participating Haywood County businesses.
The promotion capitalizes on mid-week lodging availability, especially during the summer shoulder season, when revenue can sag even as the weather stays warm.
HCTDA has also been busy on the print side, placing traditional ads in Our State Magazine and the VisitNC travel guide and maintaining high-visibility billboards in Columbia, South Carolina along I-26 — a corridor frequently traveled by potential tourists.
But perhaps one of the most buzzworthy additions to the TDA’s event lineup this year is “Fat Burger Month,” an initiative designed in response to master planning input that indicated visitors wanted more culinary events. Aimed at luring diners to Haywood’s independent restaurants during the slower winter months, Fat Burger Month included 14 restaurants, who responded with cheeky burger names like “the morning monster,” and “the cow, the pig, the goat and the fig.”
According to Ruffieux’s presentation, 160 challenges were completed by participating patrons, all of whom tried a new restaurant — a key metric in diversifying the county’s tourism economy beyond its traditional reliance on leaf peeping, motorcycle rallies and snow sports.
While big-name events and flashy campaigns grab headlines, much of HCTDA’s long-term influence is rooted in its grants program. At its May 28 board meeting, the TDA awarded $237,000 in tourism promotion and legacy event sponsorship grants to 16 projects. Each was evaluated for alignment with the destination master plan, ensuring consistency with broader economic development goals.
A second round of grant funding opens Aug. 11, with applications due by Sept. 19 and awards announced Dec. 3. Capital grants are also in play — eight applications are currently under review, with winners to be announced in September.
The increasing emphasis on grants represents a shift in how the TDA positions itself. It’s not just a marketing agency anymore. It’s a stakeholder in economic development, community placemaking and even disaster recovery messaging.
That last point may loom larger as the anniversary of Hurricane Helene approaches. The storm devastated parts of the county in 2024 and continues to shape local, state and regional narratives around resilience and recovery. HCTDA has signaled that it will take an active role in future messaging tied to the milestone, focusing on the progress that has been made.
“Across the region, in different counties ... I think everybody’s trying to get the message out that we are recovering,” said Commissioner Jennifer Best. “[Recovery] will continue for a long time, but we’re still very much open. There are lots and lots of things to do here.”
Looking further ahead, HCTDA is preparing to launch a completely new website, scheduled for summer 2026. That overhaul is expected to modernize the visitor experience, offer better access to itineraries and integrate event listings, booking platforms and geolocation features — all key to remaining competitive in an increasingly digital tourism marketplace.
Still, financial headwinds persist.
In recent years, tourism development authorities across the region have grappled with a rapidly evolving environment. Vacation rental volatility, workforce housing shortages, disaster recovery priorities and shifting traveler preferences have all upended what used to be predictable seasonal patterns.
Haywood County is no exception, and the HCTDA’s ability to pivot — to data-driven promotions, to place-based culinary events, to competitive grantmaking — may well determine whether the county remains a destination of choice in the years to come.
Nationally, inbound visitation from other countries has dropped significantly, including from Canada and Mexico. The World Travel & Tourism Council projects U.S. international visitor spending will drop from $181 billion in 2024 to just under $169 billion in 2025 — a 23% year-over-year decline. Domestically, tourism is expected to grow in 2025 by just 1.7%.
