Higher pump prices

don't repel travelers
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

Despite concerns over the economy and rising gas prices, the area’s visitor numbers continue to grow.

Boone had a record month of January based on occupancy tax collections, though the increase could have come from higher room rates in addition to increased occupancy.

After a period of flux, the number of available room rentals in Boone is about what it was in 2002, and occupancy-tax revenues were up 6.3 percent in 2007.

In January, room taxes brought in $39,282, a jump of 21 percent over the same month last year.
Room taxes generated $552,000 in 2007.

Mac Forehand, director of the Boone Convention Center and Visitor’s Bureau and a member of the town’s Tourism Development Authority that administers the tax, said last year saw some unusual fluctuations, with slight rental dips in January, February and July while October emerged as the strongest month.

Last winter started off slowly for the ski industry as a lack of snow coupled with warm weather limited slope visits.

“Last year, there was very little snow, and we had good skiing weather for this Martin Luther King Day weekend, which is usually one of the biggest skiing weekends,” Forehand said.

“It was a good, steady year, though some of the months jiggled back and forth because some have five weekends and some have four.”

Forehand said Boone visitors appeared to be immune to gas-price fluctuations even though the mountains were generally a “drive market.” The extra attraction of Appalachian State University’s football popularity may have contributed to the good statistics, though the number of home playoff football games was three in both 2006 and 2007.

“The people who came ate meals in local restaurants and picked up some souvenirs,” Forehand said.

“You could say those people didn’t help car dealerships because they didn’t buy cars, but the money that was spent goes to the business owners and employees who did buy cars, so they are spending the money locally. It has an indirect effect on the rest of the economy.”

With the recent opening of La Quinta Inn and Suites, Boone has 1,285 available short-term rental units. In 2002, when the Fairfield Inn opened, Boone had 1,273 units. In the interim, the Cardinal Motel, Oakwood Inn and Quality Inn all closed, while Country Inn and Suites and Sleep Inn opened, adding newer rooms. La Quinta opened earlier this month with 77 new rooms.

Watauga County’s room-tax revenues have exceeded expectations, generating $710,899 in their first fiscal year. Through January, the tax had raised $500,396 for the current fiscal year, putting it in line to top the 2006-2007 total. The six-percent tax took effect on July 1, 2006.

July, August and October were the strongest revenue months in the county, generally running about twice the revenues of December and January.

Blowing Rock’s occupancy-tax revenue was up 8 percent from $710,000 in 2006 to $778,000 last year.

Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce director Tracy Brown said Blowing Rock’s business owners appeared to be weathering the economic downturn even though some of town’s the historic tourism base of South Florida had been affected.

“They are feeling it down there and it may be trickling up here,” Brown said. “But Blowing Rock always weathers economic storms better than most. We’re usually the last to feel it and the first to come out of it.”

Since Boone’s occupancy tax dates back 20 years to when room taxes first emerged as revenue sources, the town spends 60 percent of collected revenues on tourism promotion and 40 percent goes into the town’s General Fund.

Blowing Rock and Watauga County are required to spend at least two-thirds of the revenues on tourism promotion, with the rest available for capital projects designed to enhance tourism.