On the opening night of Highlands’ biggest event of the year, the Macon County Economic Development Commission got a firsthand look at tourism in town.
The EDC hosted its November meeting at the Highlands Visitors Center on Thursday, just as the first band was doing sound check at the nearby Highlands Food and Wine Festival.
Highlands Chamber Executive Director Kaye McHan shared just how much tourism means to Highlands, and Macon County as a whole.
“When you look at the money tourism brings in, it’s a huge portion of our overall economy,” McHan said. “If tourism didn’t exist, meaning we collected zero occupancy tax, sales tax from visitors, etc., each resident of Macon County would have to pay $761.30 more annually in taxes to meet the town, county, and state’s budget needs. Tourism brings in $28.7 million annually in local and state taxes.”
McHan explained that the Highlands Chamber is actually two separate entities – a Chamber of Commerce that supports local businesses via membership, and VisitHighlandsNC, which is the tourism development arm of the organization.
McHan showcased several of the events that the Chamber and VisitHighlandsNC put on, or help put on, each year that bring visitors to town. Highlands Food and Wine, the Bear Shadow Music Festival, SnowFest, Meander in May and the All Hallows Eve celebration were just a few of the highlights.
“We also host concerts every Friday and Saturday night from April through October and those concerts continue to enjoy strong attendance,” McHan said. “And the great thing about having live music two nights a week is that it brings together our local people who want to come out and enjoy a nice night in town, and it brings out the people who are here visiting for the weekend. It gives people a real sense of the community that Highlands is.”
EDC Director Tommy Jenkins asked how 2023 has compared to previous years in terms of overall tourism in Highlands. McHan noted that Highlands enjoyed a tourism boom during the COVID-19 pandemic due to restrictions on international travel and due to people wanting to get out of regional cities such as Atlanta and Charlotte.
“This year is a little bit down compared to the past two years, but not much,” McHan said. “You can’t keep setting records every single year. We expected a little bit of a slowdown as the pandemic ended and people were once again able to travel internationally. But with that said, it’s still been a very busy year.”
EDC member Jerry Moore asked McHan where Highlands’ visitors come from traditionally and if the Chamber is seeing any change in the geographical sources of visitors.
“Our big ones are still the same in terms of long-term visitors, we get a lot of people from Georgia, South Carolina and Florida,” McHan said. “We have seen an uptick from Texas and Louisiana… As for day-trip visitors, most of those are regional, from Atlanta, Chattanooga, upstate South Carolina, etc.”
Following McHan’s presentation, Jenkins gave his director’s report and noted that Macon County is still near “full employment” with an unemployment rate at 2.9 percent. There has been a slight increase in the county’s workforce in recent months, but not enough to lead to increased unemployment.
Jenkins accepted a motion to change the EDC meeting schedule in 2024 to a quarterly format. The board voted unanimously to approve the change to a quarterly meeting schedule with one of those meetings being in Highlands each year.