Posted: Sunday, August 23, 2015 12:00 am
Cumberland County ranks 10th among North Carolina counties in visitor spending.
The newest annual report for Visit NC from the research department of the U.S. Travel Association was released earlier this month. Cumberland was the only Cape Fear region county in the top 10, although Moore, which hosted two weeks of U.S. Opens in June 2014, was 11th and also had some of the best taxpayer news.
The research provides spending estimates for all 100 counties and county level employment. It also has payroll and tax revenues as a result of direct visitor spending.
John Meroski, the president and CEO of the Fayetteville Area Convention Visitors Bureau, said in a release that more than a decade of effort is reflected in the latest findings.
“Fifteen years of branding, marketing and tourism strategies have helped tourism be an economic engine for Cumberland County,” Meroski said. “Tourism means business, as it all begins with a visit.”
Expenditures, according to the research, were more than $490million in Cumberland County, up 3.85 percent from 2013. State and local tax revenues generated $35.7 million, which calculates to a tax savings for each county resident of $108.39.
Tourism is credited with employing 4,290 people in the county, generating annual payroll of $89.15 million.
Spending for the U.S. Opens wasn’t broken down by county, and Cumberland – like others adjacent to Moore – surely benefited from the two-week blitz. The championships generated $140million in spending for the state, according to a report by Gene Brothers of N.C. State University estimating spending in a 26-county region by the USGA. The total economic impact for the region was $238 million.
Moore County, home to some of the best golf and resort amenities in the state, generated a per resident tax savings of $370.63. Spending was at $438.82 million, up 7.1 percent from 2013 – fourth-best percentage increase of any county in the state.
Moore County also increased direct tourism employment 4.8 percent, third-most of any county.
Ninety percent of the state’s counties had tourism employment increases. Visitor spending was up in 97 of the 100 counties.
Mecklenberg, at nearly $5billion, led the visitor spending list. Wake County (more than $2billion) was next, followed by Guilford and Dare, each with more than $1 billion.
Buncombe ($963 million), Forsyth ($785 million), Durham ($700 million), New Hanover ($508million) and Brunswick ($496million) were also in the top 10.
Military impact
In a report released last week by the North Carolina Military Affairs Commission and the North Carolina Department of Commerce, jobs supported by the military number 578,000 and two of every three are in the private sector.
The report said personal income in the state is boosted by $34 billion because of the military, contributing $66 billion to the Gross State Product.
The number of veterans in the state, according to federal data, is 775,000, who combined to receive more than $8.2 billion in pensions, medical care and other support from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2014.
– Alan Wooten
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Sunday, August 23, 2015 12:00 am.
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