NC Breaks Tourism Spending Record & Remains 5th Most Visited State

Raleigh --  Today, Governor Josh Stein declared that despite Hurricane Helene's challenges, North Carolina's tourism industry as a whole remained resilient.  In 2024, visitors to and inside the state spent about $36.7 billion.

 In 2023, $35.6 billion was the previous record.

“Today’s news underscores what we all know: North Carolina is a fantastic place to visit,” said Governor Josh Stein. “As our mountain economies worked to recover from Helene, our Piedmont and coastal destinations remained popular and contributed to the growth of North Carolina’s tourism economy. We must continue to support tourism and small businesses in western North Carolina to help them come back stronger.”.

The statement made by Governor Stein takes place during National Travel and Tourism

Week (May 4–10), when travel and tourism industry experts nationwide come together to emphasize the importance of travel to the nation's economy, businesses, communities, and individual well-being.  Activities will be held all week long at the state's Welcome Centers.

In 2024, there were 230,338 employment in the state that were supported by tourism, a 1.4% growth.  Payroll from tourism rose 2.6% to $9.5 billion.  State and local governments reported a resurgence in tax collections to around $2.7 billion due to visitor spending.

These numbers represent initial results from a study by Tourism Economics that was commissioned by Visit North Carolina, a division of the North Carolina Economic Development Partnership.  To ensure that the entire visitor economy is precisely defined, the research uses a wide range of data sources for calculating the economic value of the tourism industry.  The sources used in this comprehensive model include the NC Department of Revenue, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OmniTrak visitor profiles, the U.S. Census, STR, AirDNA, and KeyData lodging records.  Additional details regarding the study are available online at partners.visitnc.com/economic-impact-studies, which also provides links to pre-2005 reports.

Data from a statewide viewpoint is presented in the statistics released today.   Data on local and regional visitors will be included in a supplemental report later this year, which will give a clearer picture of Helene's effects on the tourism industry in western North Carolina.

North Carolina is the fifth most visited state in the United States, after California, Florida, Texas, and New York, with around 40 million tourists from all across the country.  Tennessee and Pennsylvania have been fierce rivals for fifth place during the last four years.  In addition to domestic travel spending hitting a record in 2024, North Carolina also experienced growth in the foreign market.  With almost 900,000 foreign visitors, expenditure increased by 16.5 percent to about $1.2 billion.

"The money that visitors spend benefits North Carolinians in all 100 counties," stated Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley.  "From our smallest communities to our biggest cities, tourism creates jobs for our first-in-talent workforce and over 50,000 small companies.  These employees take care of the transportation, accommodation, food, shopping, and leisure needs of tourists."

Families in North Carolina save an average of $593 annually as a result of visitors' payments to local and state taxes.

WNCTimes

Image: WNCTimes