An editorial
Visit N.C.
Leaders
of North Carolina’s hospitality industry say nothing
they’ve ever seen compares to the steep decline in business that
hotels and restaurants experienced after the terrorist attacks on New
York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11. In Raleigh, Midway
Airlines went out of business almost immediately following the
attacks, eliminating more than a third of all flights out of
Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
In Charlotte, uncertainty increased over the ability of US
Airways to survive even at a reduced level. Hotel occupancy rates
around the state, already down before the attacks due to the weakening
economy, saw further decreases of as much as 25 percent.
Last year, travel and tourism injected more than $12 billion into
North Carolina’s economy, and every county benefited, from the
industry’s $1.4 billion payroll in Mecklenburg County to the 1,400
jobs it supported in Avery County to the $16.3 million in tax receipts
generated in Brunswick County. A sharp decline in travel and tourism
will trickle down to everyone in the state. It will mean lost jobs at
hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, travel agencies, theaters and
other travel-related businesses. State and local government tax
revenues will decline.
Because this decrease in travel affects all of us, we all should do
our part, however small, to minimize the impact. What can you do?
Perhaps you’re a member of a civic, religious, business,
educational, social or fraternal organization. Most of these
organizations have meetings each year. You can encourage the
organizations you’re a member of to hold their meetings in North
Carolina instead of outside the state. Perhaps you’re also a member
of the regional or national board of directors of
a business or a nonprofit group. You could encourage those
groups to hold their meetings in one of our North Carolina
communities.
We can also take our vacations within the state. North Carolina is
blessed with a diverse geography and is home to many different
cultural, historical and entertainment attractions. Many of us
haven’t experienced what this great state has to offer. This year
and next, discover the state in which you live. And invite your
friends and relatives to visit you in North Carolina.
The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau and many other CVBs
around the state have revised their marketing efforts to concentrate
on the in-state market. They are reaching out to us to make a solid
case that it makes good business sense to spend our dollars here, and
not in some other state.
We should respond to that outreach. With each of our small individual
efforts, a great impact can be made. Everyone can help by rallying
around — and enjoying — the abundance of amenities in our great
state of North Carolina. -- Steve Tuttle
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