| Weekly e-newsletter for VisitNC partners | July 25, 2018 |
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| IN THIS ISSUE: * Visit NC PR efforts lead to Charlotte's restaurant scene in the spotlight * Lodging indicators positive for first half of 2018
* 2019 N.C. Travel Guide early bird discount ends next week
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Visit NC PR efforts lead to Charlotte's restaurant scene in the spotlight Ongoing efforts by Visit NC and Visit Charlotte have resulted in the foodandwine.com article "Yes, 2018 Is the Charlotte Restaurant Scene's Breakout Year - Here's Where to Eat." Freelance journalist Jenn Rice notes in the article, "There's no shortage of fantastic food cities in the South, but lately, the big question is whether 2018 is Charlotte's breakout year - and we offer a resounding 'yes.' Situated in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, Charlotte is one of America's fastest growing cities and now a burgeoning food capital, with some of the top chefs, mixologists, and bakers in the company making it their homes." During the past year, the Visit NC PR team has worked with destination partners to cultivate a relationship with Rice, a North Carolina native, who contributes to several top-tier travel and culinary publications. Foodandwine.com has 9.4 unique views per month. |
Lodging indicators positive for first half of 2018 Lodging data recently received by Visit NC shows that commercial lodging in North Carolina has once again broken a half-year record in terms of total room demand. Demand growth is up more than 2 percent year-to-date compared to 2017. As a single month, June was up 4.4 percent from 2017. North Carolina year-to-date demand growth is on par with South Atlantic (+2.2 percent) levels and slightly behind U.S. demand growth (+3.0 percent). Since 2000, year-to-date demand through June in N.C. is up 31 percent.
Looking forward, the national forecast for travel is positive - domestic travel is estimated to grow more than 2 percent through October 2018 and ADR is expected to increase 2.5 percent. Year-to-date, room rates (ADR) in North Carolina have increased 2 percent from the same time period in 2017. ADR in the state is at record levels for both June ($105.87) and for the first half of the year ($101.75). The chart below shows January through June ADR statewide from 2000-2018. ADR for this time period has increased 57 percent. |
Regionally, demand growth from the first half of 2018 is positive as well, particularly the Western (+4.5 percent), Southwest (+3.7 percent) and Northwest (+3.5 percent) regions. ADR in each of the state's regions is up year-to-date from 2017. The Piedmont Triad Region led the state in rate growth in year-to-date 2018 with growth of nearly 4 percent while the North Central Region posted more than 2 percent growth year-to-date.
The complete report is available here For more information contact Marlise Taylor at (919) 447-7748. |
2019 N.C. Travel Guide early bird discount ends next week The early bird discount for ad sales for the 2019 Official North Carolina Travel Guide ends next Tuesday,July 31. The North Carolina Travel Guide is the primary consumer fulfillment publication for Visit North Carolina in its international and national marketing efforts to promote the state as a premier travel destination. The guide serves as the best source for selecting what to do and where to stay when visiting North Carolina. Integrated media rates allow a destination or brand to reach consumers in all stages of travel planning. Sales representatives from Meredith are meeting face-to-face with industry partners throughout the state to share advertising opportunities for the Travel Guide. Space is limited. Advertising sales are available at an early bird discounted rate untilJuly 31. View the 2019 NC Travel Guide Media Kit here. For more information, contact Regional Sales Director Stacey Rosseter at (678) 571-7445. |
 | | | A previous TRAC in Banner Elk |
TRAC coming to Reidsville/Rockingham County region Aug. 9 On Aug. 9, tourism-related businesses in Reidsville and Rockingham County - plus the surrounding counties - will have an opportunity to work with Visit North Carolina staff to learn about its research, development and marketing services, and discuss best practices in reaching travelers, the media and increasing tourism visitation and spending. Visit North Carolina's Tourism Resource Assistance Center (TRAC) is a community-based training program designed to help small tourism-related businesses. TRAC will be held 10 am - 2 pm at the Penn House, 324 Maple Ave., in Reidsville; parking is off Irvin Street. There is no charge to attend, no reservation is required, and there is no PowerPoint presentation. This is a come-when-you-can/stay-as-long-as-you'd-like event opportunity for all tourism-related businesses to meet one-on-one with program managers to discuss better ways to promote their property or event. TRAC brings Visit North Carolina's program managers to local communities to discuss the nuts and bolts of working with the organization. This invaluable program is designed to help tourism-related businesses engage more fully with programs offered by Visit North Carolina and its partners. Representatives from the EDPNC's BLNC, N.C. Welcome Centers/Visitor Services, N.C. State Parks, Agritourism, and NC GreenTravel are often on hand to discuss services they can provide businesses, including strategic planning, assisting with identifying funding sources and serving as liaisons with other local, state and federal agencies. For additional information on this session or to learn more about scheduling a TRAC visit to your community, contact André Nabors at (919) 447-7771. |
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I-26 West N.C. Welcome Center features Serafina
The I-26 West N.C. Welcome Center has a special display highlighting the Serafina book series by Asheville author Robert Beatty. The exhibit came about when Beatty's publicist, by chance, stopped by the Welcome Center and started a conversation with Vickie Sealock, the center's manager. A video trailer for the books plays nearby with an introduction Beatty specifically recorded to welcome visitors to North Carolina. The display includes the dress and cloak worn in the Serafina book trailers, which publisher Disney Hyperion created to showcase the three books in the series. Interest in the display by visitors to the center has been incredible, with many parents asking for the pattern for the cloak for their child's Halloween costume. The center also has special Serafina bags for visitors to conveniently carry their N.C. visitor information. North Carolina's nine Welcome Centers promote thousands of tourism-related businesses - attractions, accommodations, events and more - to visitors already in the state who are actively seeking travel information. While each of the nine Welcome Center has a statewide focus with an emphasis on information for visitors traveling a particular interstate corridor, they offer partners an excellent opportunity to showcase upcoming events or area attractions on a rotating, as-available basis. To find out more, contact Visitor Services Program Manager Wally Wazan at (919) 814 4649. |
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Charlotte to host 2020 Republican National Convention Charlotte will be the host city for the 2020 Republican National Convention. Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said she's looking at Charlotte's future in the big picture. Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said, "This is one event and we are using it to recruit other events. The idea is to turn Charlotte into a convention city." RNC officials said they first contacted Charlotte leaders, as well as officials in 29 other cities, about hosting the event. In the letter, GOP officials provided an economic impact study conducted after the 2016 RNC. That study said the 2016 RNC in Cleveland had a total economic impact of $180 million. Experts said there was an economic impact of more than $163 million with the 2012 Democratic National Convention. But it's not just the Queen City that could benefit. In Cabarrus County, the economic impact from the Democratic National Convention in 2012 was around $6 million. In Concord, hotels and restaurants around the county fill up. That overflow then spills into Rowan County where hotels are also starting to book up. |
Harrah's Cherokee Valley River opens Ultrastar Multi-tainment Center Harrah's Cherokee Valley River Casino celebrated the grand opening of the new bowling and entertainment center addition on last week in Murphy. The 41,000-square-foot Ultrastar Mutli-tainment Center brings a bowling center with 16 lanes and a 2,200-square-foot arcade to the Murphy area for family-friendly activities. On the opposite side, the addition also houses the casino's first full-service restaurant, with a nearly 260-seat capacity. Two bars were included in the new construction, one to service the bowling center, the other near the restaurant to service both waiting restaurant guests and gaming participants. There will also be 24 new Tesla charging stations added to the parking lot for guest use. |
Delta starting daily flights next April connecting ORD and RDU |
Vote for N.C. faves among 10Best winery-related categories Several N.C. favorites are among the winery-related nominations for three 10Best categories. Online voting by readers is now open via USAToday.com's website; click on the hyperlink to vote. Voting ends Aug. 20at noon. |
Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours in Raleigh among '10 must-try food tours in North America' Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours' Raleigh Downtown Dinner & Drinks tour is among USA Today's "Sip, stroll and snack: 10 must-try food tours in North America." Of Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours, the article noted, "While most tours offer lunch and afternoon snacking, this one provides a full dinner. Stops include a speakeasy cocktail bar, a James Beard Award-winning chef's fried chicken and dumplings, and sake from a restaurant that started as a food truck. 'They get more into gastronomy. It's a really cool, well thought-out dinners-and-drinks concept' [the article's expert said]." The accompanying photo gallery included two photos from the tour. |
N.C. Craft Brewers Guild seeking new executive director The N.C. Craft Brewers Guild is seeking a new executive director. The full description and requirements can be found here. Deadline for applications is Aug. 17. |
Camden County TDA unveils new website The Camden County TDA has unveiled its new website, |
Crystal Coast TDA updating email suffix
The Crystal Coast TDA has updated the suffix for its email addresses, changing from @sunnync.com to @crystalcoastnc.org. Specific staff emails will now be [first name]@crystalcoastnc.org. |
Surveys, Industry, Marketing & Travel Trends Hotels must turn attention to services, J.D. Power finds - Across the board, hotels are making their customers happier than ever, according to the J.D. Power 2018 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index, as reported by HotelNewsResource. Driven by increased approval of guest rooms and hotel facilities, overall satisfaction for the industry increases 8 points to 825 (on a 1,000-point scale). Service areas also are improving, but at a slower rate. According to a J.D. Power representative, in consideration of economic cycles, hotels should emphasize refining their service effort which represents greater opportunity for improvement and requires less investment than capital improvements. Guest room and hotel facilities satisfaction, which are primarily product-focused, are increasing at a greater rate than any other factor. The factor areas with the highest level of staff touch points (check-in/check-out and food & beverage) have improved the least. Providing authentic local experiences has increasingly become an important focus of the hotel industry as a means of providing a unique, destination-specific feel to a hotel room. While providing an authentic local experience in food and beverage is essential, more guests experience the guest room décor and hotel facilities. Focusing on delivering a location-specific feel can cause a greater lift to overall satisfaction.
Restaurants must embrace online delivery, and fast - Restaurant megachains already have a lot on their plate: The industry is too crowded and their menus and supply chains need an overhaul as consumers opt for trendy or healthy ingredients. But they must be careful that dealing with those ongoing challenges doesn't cause them to miss out on their best hope for long-term growth, according to Bloomberg. Over the next five to 10 years, nothing will be more decisive than online food delivery in sorting winners and losers in the dining sector. In fact, restaurant chains are at much the same moment that mall-based and big-box chains were in the first decade of the 2000s, when e-commerce had just started to show itself as a massive threat to the traditional retail model. Some of the major players in the dining business have gotten the hint. Domino's Pizza Inc. has been consistently delivering robust comparable sales growth, in no small part because it was an early leader on digital-enabled ordering. Other chains have invested in GrubHub or DoorDash. But others appear to be approaching delivery only cautiously or at a small scale, likely because they're worried each sale made in this format could be less profitable. But restaurants can't afford to think that way. In the last year or so, consumers appear to be giving in to the routine of swiping and tapping a dinner order. The gap is closing between the share of diners who are using online delivery habitually and those who don't use it and aren't interested in it. At beach resorts, this bizarre sunscreen booth can mean business - A sunburned guest isn't the only one not having a good time at a resort. As it turns out, hoteliers feel the burn, too, reports the Tampa Tribune. With some of their largest margins - up to 70 percent - coming from poolside cocktails, excursions, and spa services, hoteliers, too, see the benefits of SPF (sun-protection factor). Enter SnappyScreen, a New York-based startup whose sunscreen-spraying booths promise mess-free, head-to-toe coverage in just 10 seconds. The booths are already available at 10 hotels and resorts in the U.S., Mexico, and the Caribbean. According to the company's CEO/founder, guests spend an average of $26 more per person, per day on poolside food and beverage service when there's a complimentary SnappyScreen booth nearby. At one Dallas resort where SnappyScreen was installed before the start of the 2017 summer season, the food and beverage department enjoyed a year-over-year boost of $170,000. According to a resort representative, that's a 31 percent revenue spike-not to mention a highly "Instagram-able" amenity that's like free marketing for millennials. How luxury hotels and restaurants in developing countries fight food waste- One Mexican resortproduces a veritable ton of food waste each day, but rather than dumping it into the trash, the Puerto Vallarta resort delivers roughly 700 pounds of it, each morning, to a hog farmer down the road to use as feed, reports NPR. Much of what doesn't go to the pigs is composted on site and then used to fertilize the resort's verdant gardens. Ultimately, the combo of food waste, leaves, and grass trimmings are returned to the soil, while diverting waste from Mexico's overloaded landfills. Compost is also shared with staff, for use at their homes. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly a quarter of food purchases in hotels and restaurants are simply thrown away. One luxury hotel in Rio de Janeiro recycles more than 1,800 gallons of cooking oil and composts nearly all of its food waste, but not before crushing it to reduce its volume by 88 percent. For many hotels, simple knowledge of the issue has resulted in greater observance from staff and ultimately, less waste. While it's easier for large hotels and resorts to fund audits and enlist comprehensive waste-management systems, smaller properties have found low-cost ways to reduce their environmental footprint, too. Curbing the laptop camper - As a growing number of restaurant operators embrace the guest who would convert their cozy café into a personal workspace, others in the industry are pushing back on the trend, according to Restaurant Hospitality. Coffee shops and cafés have been populated by throngs of laptop users for the past 20 years, but some operators have taken a stand in order to create a more comfortable environment for the rest of their guests. One Burlington, Vt., cafe owner initially went along with the common practice of allowing customers to camp out with their laptops. She realized she was missing out on lunch business from customers who couldn't find a seat. She then tried limiting laptop use by banning them from during lunch hours so that potential lunch customers wouldn't be put off. "We were shocked at how many people came in and said, 'Thank you for doing this,'" the owner said. The reaction helped spur her decision to eliminate laptop use altogether as of April 2014. Sales were up 20 percent in the first laptop-free year. Other cafés and coffee shops have tried various strategies to discourage laptop use, including adding design elements such as "brew bars" that are too narrow for laptops, where patrons stand with their coffee. Others have established device-free areas or restrict laptop use during certain times. Well-designed elevators can lift guest experience - Modern travelers expect the unexpected in all parts of a hotel, including inside elevator cabs. HotelNewsNow notes sources said they are recognizing the importance of giving elevators a lift in appearance and efficiency through design and technology solutions. "For us it's really about finding these quick humorous things, whether it's the color of the light (inside the elevator) or application of an image to create a little bit of a mood that makes it more unique," said a design strategies representative with Marriott International. Elevators can sometimes be an area of disconnect from public spaces to guestrooms, she added, and it's important to think about how the experience can be continued throughout. Marriott's Moxy brand has been playing around with a couple of different elevator design elements for each Moxy location. For example, elevators at the Moxy Denver Cherry Creek are wrapped with themed photos, like ice cubes in a cocktail glass. And elevators at the Moxy Minneapolis Uptown feature colored lighting in the elevator cabs. Each of these applications, the rep explained, were meant to create playful, Instagrammable experiences for guests. Marriott also is looking into infusing scents into the elevators. She said she's noticing that even elevator manufacturers understand that there is demand to play up the look of elevators. |
Managing derelict fishing gear Along with single-use plastics such as pop bottles, straws and foam cups, derelict fishing gear is destroying turtles, fish, coral, shell fish, marine mammals and sea birds. Derelict fishing gear refers to sport or commercial fishing equipment that has been abandoned, discarded or lost in the marine environment. The term "ghost fishing" is used to describe how lost, abandoned or discarded fishing gear continues to trap and kill marine life. Once lost in the sea and other waterways, derelict fishing nets and traps continue to ghost fish for years, killing endangered and protected species such as coral reefs, crustaceans, anemones, sponges and a variety of other aquatic life. Porpoises, whales, turtles and sea lions are endangered as well because they become entangled by ropes, nets and fishing line. Divers and swimmers are at risk too. One key to protecting our coastline and other waterways is for businesses such as hotels, piers and fishing tour companies to promote responsible management of fishing gear and provide recycling bins for monofilament fishing line. They can also support NC Sea Grant and NOAA efforts to recover gear. For more information about how a business can help protect the marine environment, contact NC GreenTravel Initiative manager Tom Rhodes at (919) 707-8140. |
| | For the week of July 26 on North Carolina Weekend, learn about and take a tour of historic Bath. Visit some of the orchards and cideries in the Hendersonville area. Explore the N.C. Pottery Center in Seagrove. You'll be feline fine at the American Museum of the House Cat in Sylva. And check out the scene at the HeArt Gallery in Jacksonville. (Check local listings; segments are subject to change.)North Carolina Weekend is underwritten by Visit North Carolina. In addition, UNC-TV has made recent editions of | In 2017, the top advertising markets sending overnight visitors to North Carolina were Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville (12.6 percent), Charlotte (10.7 percent), Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point (6.6 percent), Atlanta (5.7 percent), Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville (4.0 percent), Washington DC (3.8 percent), Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News (3.7 percent), and New York (2.9 percent). For more North Carolina visitor information, visit the Visitor Profile Studies, or contact Tourism Research Director Marlise Taylor at (919) 447-7748.
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Upcoming Industry Meetings & Events
July 27 - Piedmont Triad DMO Meeting, High Point Aug. 7 - Visit NC Travel & Tourism Board Meeting, Charlotte Aug. 8-12 - NCMA-VMA-MCASC Regional Meeting, Greenville, S.C. Aug. 9 - Visit NC TRAC, Reidsville Aug. 11-14 - US Travel Assn's ESTO, Phoenix, Ariz. Aug. 16 - NC Coast Host Meeting, Greenville Aug. 27-28 - N.C. Restaurant & Lodging Expo, Charlotte Sept. 20-21 - MPI-CC XChange, Charlotte
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