The county, which had previously prohibited all leisure travel, will now limit reservations to “staycations” for Western North Carolina residents with an 828 area code. Occupancy is restricted to 50%, and visitors who are not part of the same family or household cannot occupy adjacent rooms.
“Consider the consequences if we move to open things up too early or too fast: We risk losing all the gains and advantages our proactive and aggressive measures have afforded us,” said Fletcher Tove, the county’s emergency preparedness coordinator. “If we get rid of our parachute too early, we’ll go into another free fall.”
