Leadership Asheville pulled in some high-octane local speakers for the final installment of its summer Buzz Breakfast series held on Aug. 14. The composition of the panel reveals some key trends shaping the power dynamic that’s emerged over the past year.
As annual hotel occupancy tax revenues approach $20 million, the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority on May 29 considered how to divide that increasingly juicy pie to continue to drive tourism to the area.
The N.C. Department of Transportation and the city of Asheville have announced a plan to conduct a corridor study prior to planning improvements for Merrimon Avenue.
“I recently walked around the whole area and found only one African-American face, and that was on one brochure, of what seemed like hundreds, for a county assistance agency. What does that say to a black resident or visitor?”
Roughly 1,600 new hotel rooms have opened in Buncombe County since late 2015 — an increase of approximately 15 percent over that period — with 1,900 still planned. “Since the start of this construction cycle, we’ve been able to fully absorb a pretty enormous supply,” said Explore Asheville President and CEO Stephanie Pace Brown. “We just need to do that over again in the next three or four years.”
“When you visit a honey-tasting shop, local record store or family farm, know that your support helps us to thrive and live our passions here in Asheville.”
The dreary Wednesday morning weather couldn’t put a damper on a 1 p.m. reception celebrating the new office location of the recently-rebranded Explore Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau.
By day, the streets of Asheville are packed with hordes of tourists following their GPS toward crowded restaurants, locals weaving their way to favorite hole-in-the-wall cafés and beer drinkers galore stumbling toward the next brewery on their list. But as night sets in and shops start to close, an entirely new problem emerges: Where can […]
