(uplifting music) - [Narrator] This is "Carolina Business Review".

Major support provided by High Point University, the premier life skills university, focused on preparing students for the world as it is going to be.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

Sonoco, a global manufacturer of consumer and industrial packaging products and services, with more than 300 operations in 35 countries.

- It would not be inaccurate to say that the Trump administration's recent proposals and actions about tariffs are a shock to the system for sure.

But these waves of uncertainty, disquiet and unsettle much more than just the business and commercial community.

Welcome to the most widely watched and the longest running dialogue on Carolina business policy and public affairs.

I am Chris William, and on this installment of "CBR", it's not about the recent trade in tariff angst, but even the largest business in the Carolinas has been eclipsed by this current distress, tourism and hospitality.

So while we're busy worrying about things like interest rates, recession, the stock market, global trade, where might we be headed for summer travel and tourism this season?

As we do every year, we have convened the Carolina's two travel and tourism czars Wit Tuttle and Duane Parrish, please stay with us.

- [Narrator] Major funding also by Foundation For The Carolinas.

A catalyst for philanthropy and driver of civic engagement, helping individuals, nonprofits, and companies bring their charitable visions to life.

Truliant Federal Credit Union, proudly serving the Carolinas since 1952 by focusing on what truly matters, our members' financial success.

Welcome to brighter banking.

And Martin Marietta, a leading provider of natural resource-based building materials, providing the foundation on which our communities improve and grow.

(lively music) On this edition of "Carolina Business Review", Wit Tuttle, Executive Director of Visit NC and Duane Parrish, Director of the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism.

(upbeat inspiring music) - Hello welcome to our program.

Gentlemen, you know, selfishly like this program we don't pick favorites but this is a good one because, you know, you two compete but you're frenemies.

- We are.

- [Chris] I like that about you.

In a good way, right?

- Hey, travel improves everybody so... - It does.

- So I gotta ask you the elephant in the room, is the trade and tariffs.

I mean, that is such a big issue with people and even I mean, it's died off just a little bit, but it's still a big issue and it eclipses so much.

So can you even look through the fog and can you model out past this even for the early season, Duane?

- I think we've already been through the initial impact, the greatest impact that'll happen.

Typically, history tells us some of these boycotts, tariffs, if you will, have a short...

Fairly short lifespan.

I think over time, in the next six months to... Six to 12 months, this will subside somewhat.

There was some initial impact but it also happened before the season started and so it didn't, I don't think it had the effect.

But I think as we go, as time goes by, a lot of the people who have canceled reservations will come back and rebook and wind up at the end of the day.

I think there's just an early arrow in the war, if you will.

- Yeah.

- Yeah you know I'll say, uncertainty is bad for business, fear is worse.

So, you know, I think what we've seen now is fear, which we haven't seen that much.

That's bad, but it's not gonna be as bad for us.

You know, our Canadian business is mostly snowbirds, I don't think it's gonna be as big an impact on them, and we're really more so about domestic visitors than we are about the international visitors.

So I think it's gonna be a tough year for international, but that's not gonna have as big an impact on us.

- You know, it's funny what you talk about the Canadians and the travel and trade, and Canadians loved Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand and still do- - They do.

- I know in large part.

So that a meaningful hit that Canadians are now worried about traveling to the United States?

- It was, Myrtle Beach CAN-AM Days take place in March, and so that has had an impact on travel in March.

And so, but at the end of the day, they've been coming since the 1960s.

So there's a strong relationship with Myrtle Beach, as you just pointed out, with Myrtle Beach and the Canadian traffic.

So I think at the end of the year there'll be... We'll catch up some of that.

- So when you look down the road and you...

I mean really, what's your best guess that 2025 tourism, growth, travel, growth.

Is it going to be growth, will it be flat, or is it gonna surprise you with something else?

(everyone laughs) - You can't do that.

- I think it's flat to a small percentage.

that's somewhere between flat and three or 4%.

- [Chris] That's... - I'm hoping for flat.

I think visitation will be down, spend hopefully, you know, continues to increase and hopefully that'll balance it out so I'm hoping for flat.

- You know, that's interesting to hear you two, for as long as I've known you, for all the years I've watched, and you...

Sorry to say this but you... Not sorry to say this, but you all... You both are always fairly conservative in your numbers and they always come out better.

So is this one of those under deliver...

Under promise and over deliver years you think?

- I think so, I think the unique products that we both have from the mountains to the sea, we will come out better than the rest of the country in terms of whatever the national number is, we will come out better in North and South Carolina.

- I think that's a given yeah.

We're gonna outperform other states, but, you know, and we've got additional challenges this year because of the hurricane coming back.

- So we thank you for that nice segue Wit, so we've got two big things, natural disasters, of course the hurricane in the upstate and certainly western North Carolina.

But also what we've had 60 wildfires going on in the Carolinas now.

I mean, does that... Is that one of those things or is it just a headline that that grabs attention?

I think it was worse this year 'cause we're in a drought, but it is, it's an annual occurrence, you know, fires.

And fire's an important part of forest regrowth and things like that so unfortunately, I think it got played up a bit more this year because we're coming off of what we're coming off of, but it's not unusual.

- [Chris] Yeah.

- On our side, at Table Rock, it got outta control pretty quickly.

The mountainous terrain, difficult to do fire breaks with the trees down from Helene.

And so all of that led to it, but at the end of the day, we didn't lose any structures.

And so we have a lot of charred ground, roughly 11,000 acres, it will come back, the char actually works as a fertilizer.

So next, this fall and next spring, well, it'll looked really good.

- Does that impact revenue though, besides fighting the fire?

Besides managing the communities, does that impact?

- In our side, yes.

In our state parks, we've lost about $80,000 in revenue just from the parks we had to close during that time.

And well, we may make some of that back, not all of it, but yes, it does impact it and plus the additional expense of fighting the fire.

- Big question Hurricane Helene, how much has that impacted, directly impacted travel and tourism?

- Huge, huge for North Carolina.

You know, we spent a month telling people not to come to western North Carolina, that's hard to get over.

And the videos and the images went viral, you know, they're still out there.

We're still getting interviewed and people are showing things that are six months old and it's just... And I've been dealing with hurricanes for 50 years, that was...

I've never seen anything like what's happened in some of those places.

But I will say I just came from a conference in Asheville, recovery's goin' better than we thought it would, faster than we thought it would.

You know some places have a long way to go, but some places are already back.

- What the sense that you feel or that you've gotten up there, if you were in Buncombe County or Ash County?

- Yeah, it's great spirit.

You know, you really see North Carolina, you see people doing incredible things.

You know, there's a guy who works in a tourism office and he went to another county, hiked up 10 miles up a ravine with a heat seeking drone to help find people.

And spent six months, put 15,000 miles on his car, delivering goods as part of the recovery.

So you see these amazing things and how communities pull together and it's really...

I mean it's really inspirational what's happening out there.

- We had Ben Duncan from South Carolina Office of Resiliency here talking about the same thing.

- Sure.

- I mean Ben's tenor and tone were surprisingly upbeat and inspirational.

- Yeah we were able to come back quicker.

We didn't have near the damage obviously that western North Carolina had, but it still came through us.

We had up to 30 parks closed at one time.

Big impact on state parks and some of the other areas, smaller town what we call undiscovered South Carolina, in that part of the state it had a negative impact on tourism.

But then there's a curiosity factor that people wanna come see what this hurricane did do.

- [Chris] Yeah, sure.

- And so there's some people visiting that may not have visited otherwise, you know?

And so at the end of that, and so I think we'll be fine by the end of the year.

- You know, while you're managing expectations around trade and tariffs, and recovery from natural disasters.

Oh yeah, you have to do your job too and you have to figure out how to get... How to grow revenue and do growth.

What about growth in the business?

Is North Carolina going to grow its core business around tourism?

- Oh certainly we will.

- What does that look like?

- Well, I think the big part of the... You know, the hurricane was devastating, it's terrible, but there's the opportunity there to build it back better, you know, make it more resilient, make it more profitable.

So we're seeing that in some of these communities, they're not just talking about putting it back the way it was.

They're talking about how can we improve it, how can we make it better?

How can we make it a better experience, a more profitable experience?

And I tell you, we've had a great relationship between the administration and the legislature working together to get funds available.

There's $1.4 billion in HUD money that commerce has done an amazing job getting a plan ready.

And the legislature has funded that with early money from the state so they can get going, they don't have to wait for the feds.

- To about what level of degree or what degree of the funding?

- They funded about a quarter I think of what they need.

Enough to get started until the federal money rolls in so we hope to be swinging hammers this summer to start getting housing back, which is gonna help for employment 'cause we'll have housing.

And there's money in there for communities to rebuild.

Like Chimney Rock's gonna have to completely rebuild the town, essentially and you know that's gonna require money, even just the planning of that.

- So not to interrupt you but we had Mayor Peter O'Leary here from Chimney Rock talking about, you know... And here's the guy that had O'Leary's General Store and he lives above it and he was talking again hopefully, and we've all seen this.

If you haven't been to Chimney Rock or Swannanoa, or Black Mountain or all those places, it's hard to imagine them being upbeat about it but he was pretty upbeat.

- Yeah, yeah they've got a great plan, they're working together, you know?

And the idea is to, not just to put it back, but to how can we make it, put it back better?

- This is a gutsy move too.

And Duane, I'm looking at you about this, but that you're asking for extra money for extra parks.

I mean that's pretty gutsy and I don't mean it mean, but I mean given all these other challenges, give us more money, we're gonna open more parks.

Is that the truth, you've got more parks slated?

- Yes in the next 18 to 24 months, we'll open six more parks.

You know, as more people have moved to South Carolina, one of the fastest growing populations in the state, the need for green space becomes more and more relevant.

Outdoor recreation, if you remember after, post COVID was very popular that stayed true today.

And so that need for green space, regardless of what happens on the National Park basis, state parks have remained very popular.

We're as busy as ever, we have more people wanting to visit.

We have our issue now sometimes is lack of parking, trying to get people in there in some places.

And so we feel the need to try to add more parks.

And we do that on a somewhat diversified geographic basis around the state with six more parks that'll open up in the next two years.

- How do you all manage the idea that transportation is an integral part of planning a new park or deploying in the repair... Not in the repair of I-40 necessarily Wit, but the idea that a transportation plan has to be part of what we're talking about.

- Well, it's huge and it's huge for tourism, you know?

And we have to work together with transportation because, you know, you look at the Outer Banks, if everybody's coming in and out on the same day every week, you're gonna have jam ups on the bridges and you know, if you gotta replace bridges, how are you gonna do that?

So it's really important that we work together and that tourism, not just residents, is thought about when you do transportation planning and rebuild.

- So what do you... Not to not to hold your feet to the fire but what are you doing with DOT in North Carolina now about these things?

- Yeah so we work with DOT, we try and be engaged in everything they're doing to try and make it better for the residents, but also for the visitors and understand that flow.

- Does Joey Hopkins understand that part?

- I think so.

- Secretary.

- Yeah okay, Duane, same thing DOT.

- Yeah great relationship with Justin Powell.

DOT helps us not only in state parks with paving, but they also let us know what they're working on, what's going to be construction zones, if you will.

But also there are things we can do on the tourism side.

And I'll give you an example, Hilton Head years past, Saturday was the turnover day, for weekly rentals went Saturday to Saturday.

Obviously the consumer is not always weekly now, but Hilton had also realized this and it said 278 was a mess at that time.

They flipped that, some of 'em have Friday, some have Saturday, some have Sundays, so that alleviated some of the traffic on that Saturday basis.

- Who makes that decision, the locals?

- Yeah the local county, city- - Municipality.

- And this term's Hilton Head, the municipality there, and then the tourism people along the industry and the rental companies said, okay, we can flip this around and even out some of the traffic.

- One of the other big dynamics is the calendar of the schedule, the school calendar, and the travel.

In North Carolina, there is some talk and there seems to be some movement in the General Assembly about school calendar.

Help us understand what that's going to be.

What you hope it's going to be.

- Yeah, I think we've got a deal here that works out for everybody so it's really great.

So the schools will have the option to keep their calendars the same or move them up a week.

They're gonna be able to use hours rather than days so they can adjust the calendars to get the kids, you know, the biggest issue is they wanted to start earlier to be able to get these tests in by the end of the year so this should allow them to do that.

- Even a week we'll give them- - I think a week plus being able to use hours rather than days should be able to allow them to do that.

That to me, fixes that problem and it gives families who are traveling and people who need employees, kids who are getting outta school, gives them that certainty of, okay, this is when we're gonna be able to open up and get visitors.

It's gonna mean a lot for the tax revenue coming into the state.

And if they don't abide by that calendar, there's gonna be some punishment 'cause right now, several school districts are actually violating the law by calendars that aren't legal.

- So meaning less than 180 days of education?

- They're starting earlier than they're allowed to.

- Oh okay, now this is this is an old challenge in South Carolina, we all know that because of the beaches.

- Yes.

- Is there any talk among the General Assembly in your gang?

- No, there hasn't been so we have a... A public school can't start before the third Monday of August.

And that's worked out pretty well for both the tourism industry and the educational side in that regard.

There are private schools obviously, can start whenever they want but- - Do you think that'll change at all?

- I don't, there've been a few exceptions made in some places but nothing that has materially impacted in tourism.

- What about daylight savings time?

I know that's another kind of calendar thing.

It looks like there's actually some real traction on the federal level about doing... Or permanently making it daylight savings time.

Would that matter?

Does that matter?

- I think it...

I think it makes it, not as much as the school start date, but I think it makes some difference in regard to the daylight savings time being, the sun being out another hour each day.

Certainly, yes.

More people outside, more people doing things, more people active, which means they're spending more money at the end of the day.

- Yeah it's a hard thing to measure but I think if you give the people the opportunity to be out and spend, that's what we want, yeah.

- We all know that labor is the biggest expense in almost every business and that's not less true in travel and tourism so immigration has...

There's new immigration policy has been deployed.

We've all watched the videos, we've read the headlines, how does that impact hiring, and just finding people in the business?

- Yeah, you know what I think we need to do is try and separate the issues because there's immigration issues about, you know, problems with immigrations, people staying over.

And then we've got these sort of visa issues where it's student visas, HB1s, it's temporary workers coming in, many of whom have already come in before and gone back legally and done it perfectly.

We wanna expand that, that's what we're interested in.

You know, immigration can take case with what it wants, what we want are these students and temporary workers to be able to come in and have more of them 'cause they're really a lifeblood for our- - So to press you a little bit more on this Wit, do the undocumented workers not as big of an impact in the business?

- I don't think in tourism, not nearly as much.

- Wit?

Or I'm sorry, Duane.

- That's okay.

Yeah same thing for us.

The H2-B visas is that we would love that number to be expanded on the federal side and so far it's fine.

And but that's gotten us through the summer, particularly on the coast is what we lose a lot of those workers to the point where places like Sea Pines they actually built housing for those workers.

When they come in, they have a place to stay.

- Is there a lever you can pull to influence federal policy around this?

Or are the states just at the whim of whatever federal- - Well, we advocate for it every year when we're only two states outta 50 obviously, but we advocate for it every year.

And we emphasize and Wit makes a great point, it's a separate issue from the immigration and border issue.

It is really bringing people over here on a temporary basis to help us get through, us and resorts all over the country, us get through that busy season to help us get through the labor issue.

- I'm assuming that your counterparts in other states and other other regions that have... - Lobbying for it as well.

- Yeah.

- Yeah we were just up in DC, the industry as a whole to try and lobby for that.

And also visa wait times too, which is a bigger issue for things like World Cup games that are coming to the state.

You know, in some places it's 400, 600 days to wait to get a visa.

- [Duane] Yeah it's crazy.

- No I know and World Cup, what kind of impact do you think that's gonna make in the Carolinas?

- I think it's gonna have a bigger impact than people think.

You know, we don't have a World Cup game, but we've got Club World Cup coming in and even if we don't have a game, the teams will come and train.

And I think what a lot of people don't understand, it's not just about those people that are sitting in the stadium.

There'll be another a hundred, 200,000 people around the stadium that come just to for the experience.

- Yeah you know, this soccer thing might catch hold globally, you know?

(everyone laughs) - Yeah.

- And speaking of catching hold, Michelin and Michelin stars, and the Michelin blessing is meaningful, right?

Tell us what just came out about this.

- We're a lot more than sweet tea and boiled peanuts.

I mean they really... We really are, I mean- - We kind of want to keep quiet sometimes.

- The food scene in the Carolinas is tremendously grown.

You know, 30, 40 years ago people didn't travel to have food but today there's foodies.

There's the Food Network, there's "Food and Wine" magazine, there's so many food media outlets.

It's become almost a cottage industry within the tourism industry.

And so you look at James Beard designation what it means today.

You look at the Michelin rating system for on the food side, been in Europe for a hundred years, but been in the United States the last couple decades and starting to grow in more territories.

But getting these six states of which two of, are North and South Carolina is a big deal for us.

- It puts our culinary scene on the map and our culinary scene can hold up with a lot of other places, but this is going to allow other people that don't get that to see it.

People travel just for this, it's really remarkable.

- What kind of impact do you think this makes?

Because the culinary scene was on the map, but is this a global blessing of some sort?

- I do, I think it's we're gonna see positive.

It's gonna help the...

It's also gonna help the restaurant industry grow because people are gonna wanna come here 'cause they can be a Michelin restaurant.

It's gonna help them get staff, get better staff, it's gonna help a lot of things.

What's really beautiful about the deal we have with Michelin is they're gonna look at the whole state, so there could be some rural restaurants that get this star that could be really huge for that area.

- [Chris] Really.

- Yeah two quick points for us.

One, it helps the restaurant industry really recruit better talent.

You know, if you're a chef and you want to be a Michelin, this is a place you can do it, you can't do it everywhere.

You can come to the Carolinas and be a one, two, three star chef.

Secondly, the North American headquarters of Michelin is in Greenville, South Carolina.

- [Chris] Yeah that probably doesn't hurt, right?

- Right, exactly.

- You know, maybe has Charleston figured out that they could be a foodie place?

Oh wait, they are.

- They are, they're there.

- So you think Charleston's gonna be one of the first on the map to get this?

- I mean, it is an editorial decision all by Michelin.

So we can't say, "Give us one there and one there."

You earn it, you have to earn it but obviously I think there's some places in North and South Carolina that have earned it.

- Go ahead, I'm sorry.

- No the unbiasedness of it, that really is what makes it very special.

It it is truly a deserved award when someone gets that.

- And no, it is pretty exciting, I'm not a foodie but I do understand the implications of that.

So a another accolade Wit on the Executive Committee for the US Travel Association.

- [Wit] Thanks.

- I mean, it's a very nice appointment and it's a very big move.

What does it mean for North Carolina?

- I think it's good for the state because I can have an opinion there, that's gonna help influence what the policy is, what the policy decisions are done.

At a federal level it also helps, you know, I get to hear what's going on globally.

Cause some of these companies are global that are on that executive board and that give us some insights into where the industry's going.

Part of the reason why I think we're gonna be flat this year.

- Got a little bit of insight.

Is that something you could whisper in his ear, and say, "You know can you take this up there?"

- Of course, of course.

We share the same last name, of course we do.

I always say that, you know.

Yeah, of course I do, yeah.

- The same last name.

I had think about that for a second.

- I'm just shocked when Wit has an opinion on something.

- Well are, you know, you guys are smiling, y'all are feeling good about things.

Even in light of some of these things, what are you really worried about?

Is there something that comes up that you go, you know, this is... Not something that comes outta left field, I don't mean that kind of thing, but there's got to be something that rotates through your head that is a concern for the business.

- You know, I think a recession's always a worry.

You know tourism is not a required thing, it's discretionary, you don't have to do it.

You have to pay your rent, you have to pay your mortgage, and you don't have to take that trip so a recession could hurt.

Now we tend to fare well during a recession, better than others but it's not great, you know?

- Yeah similar, but I think the more we talk about recession in the media and social media, the more likely it is to happen.

- You mean self-fulfilling?

- It becomes self-fulfilling in many respects, but it's the unknown that keeps me awake at night.

What's the next hurricane?

When's the next fire?

What's the next federal legislation that hurts tourism?

Whatever the case may be.

- Have you dusted off those '08, '09 great recession numbers just to see how we modeled?

How the Carolinas modeled?

- We fared better than the rest of the country, even in the banking corners.

- Substantially?

- Yeah, substantially.

- Oh yeah.

- But in COVID we fared much better than the rest of the country did.

- Yeah we've been fortunate, the last two big sort of, you know, economic slumps, we've done really well compared to everyone else.

And I think we will, again, we're positioned well.

We've got the things people want, people now see, I think since COVID, they see travel almost as a necessity and we're easy to get to, we're a great price, and we're Michelin rated, so... - [Duane] That's right.

- Yeah but it's not yet though, right?

- No, but it's coming.

- When is that gonna actually be in place?

- Well, inspections are happening now.

- Okay.

- Toward the end of the year is when they'll actually announce some of the things.

- Do they announce where they're going for the inspections?

Do they do... - Inspections?

No, no, no, they don't.

No, no they'll announce where the awards takes place but at a later date but they don't announce when they're coming to a restaurant.

- When is the later date?

Do they, have they... - Somewhere around the end of the year.

- Okay so everybody's gonna be holding their breath for their balance of the year, but there's a lot of excitement.

Have you gotten that sense from- - Oh yeah.

- Restaurateurs and chefs?

- Yeah the culinary side, they're over the top and they should be, this is a big deal for them.

This is a game changer.

- Well, what is a nugget?

We've got about a minute and a half left, but what is a nugget in tourism that is a trend this year that maybe... You know, I always like to ask you this, where do you like to go?

What are your vacation spot?

What are your interests?

But what is a place that's different this year?

Maybe not a place but a trend.

- I think people are looking for authenticity, so they're looking for something that's different, maybe that's only available here.

Something you can only see here.

You know, there's only one place where Black Beard the Pirate was killed and that's Ocracoke Island, so you can go there and you can see that.

You can go to the Graveyard of Atlantic Museum in Hetteres.

So I think it's that, you know, people are tired of the same, everything's the same.

Get this there and there, and everything, so we're seeing that they want real, authentic.

- Okay, authentic.

- Yeah I think uniqueness, the experiential is what everybody's looking for.

It's not always the traditional, the standard.

Our job is to get 'em to stay another day, spend a little more money.

And so the more that we can create, the more that we can get ourselves.

- What does that look like?

In about 15, 20 seconds, - Sure, what does that look like?

- What's different than going to the beach, going to the Grand Strand, going to Charleston?

- Stopping and visiting the barbecue trail on the way out from the beach.

Going back in the rural areas, which is where some of the best barbecue is in both our states.

Doing those kinds of things, that's just an example.

- [Chris] You don't wanna open up that debate, right?

- No, no, no.

- [Chris] The barbecue debate.

- No, no I don't wanna make North Carolina look bad.

- Okay we'll end there, we'll stop there.

- I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

Great barbecue in both.

- Kind of kidding, but kind of not.

- No, no.

- Thank you both for being here, I always like seeing you.

Good luck to you this year, we're gonna be watching.

- Thanks.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Good to see you both.

Till next weekend, Chris William.

Have a good weekend, goodnight.

- [Narrator] Gratefully acknowledging support by Martin Marietta, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Foundation For The Carolinas, Sonoco, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, High Point University, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

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