20. Tryon Palace, New Bern 226,571 visitors
Marc DeRoberts
Digital Producer- Triangle Business Journal
The Triad once again emerges as a popular place to visit, with two entries on the top-20 list of North Carolina’s most popular tourist attractions in 2014, compiled by Carolina Publishing and Associates.
Click through the slideshow to see how North Carolina’s tourist attractions ranked and how many visitors each had in 2014.
This is the list’s 11th year. The Biltmore house and gardens in Asheville, which was consistently a front-runner, has been removed from the list because CPA says it no longer provides annual attendance totals. In the 10 years it was counted on the list, Biltmore ranked No. 1 nine times – only dropping to second place in the 2011 list of top tourist attractions. The N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences came in at No. 1 that year.
In a report published Tuesday, Visit NC announced its “Beauty Amplified” campaign created a $15-to-$1 return for state and local taxes on each dollar spent by the state in advertising to attract tourists. The report says the travelers spent about $213 million as a result of the campaign. Details of the report’s findings and methodology are on Visit NC’s website.
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