CHASING WATERFALLS.

• Position: ROUND TABLE: TRAVEL & TOURISM

With its long-touted "mountains to the coast," slogan, North Carolina is one of the five most-visited states in the country. Attracting all segments of tourism takes new approaches. This is true more than ever as the state's hospitality industry struggles with immense labor shortages. Business North Carolina recently gathered top travel and tourism experts to discuss what's happening across the state. From Serena Williams's retirement announcement and the global resurgence of golf, to increased interest from foodies and new waterfall photo shoots, many components for drawing visitors are at play from mountains to coast.

Explore Asheville, Creenville-Pitt County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Pinehurst Resort, Convention & Visitors Bureau for the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area, VisitNC and Visit Winston-Salem sponsored the discussion. It was moderated by Business North Carolina Publisher Ben Kinney and edited for brevity and clarity.

CAN YOU GIVE US AN OVERVIEW OF HOW TOURISM IS FARING?

TUTTELL: Tine pandemic was fascinating for North Carolina, because we have everything people wanted during that time. We saw people flock to the mountains and to the coast. Leisure travel wasn't so good for some of the urban destinations, and meeting and business travel just dried up. So we had a really interesting situation in the state since we had some people barely able to contain the business they were getting yet others weren't getting the business they were accustomed to. I think that's leveling out now, but it's not completely leveled out yet. Business travel hasn't come back as far as we would like, meetings and events are coming, but international travel hasn't come back yet. What's really fascinating is the way different areas have adjusted to it. The mountains and the coast are adjusting to staffing shortages. Some of the urban areas are adjusting so they now have leisure travel, instead of business travel being a prominent way of people visiting there.

WERZ: We 're seeing a boost. Even with COVID, there was a huge boost for our destination, just because we can socially distance and golf enjoyed a global resurgence. Now with the USGA coming into town (building a second headquarters and sprawling campus) that accounts for what the N.C. Department of Commerce has predicted will be a $2 billion economic impact on the state through 2047. So there's a great future ahead for the destination, we're just dealing with some growing pains and how that's going to work out over the next five to 10 years.

MINGES: I hate to be the Debbie Downer in the room, but I hear a lot of challenges from business owners and they run the gamut. But first of all, I think it's important to know that during COVID, our industry took on significant losses. Many businesses are still struggling, still underwater. And if you look at the rest of North Carolina's economy, it's up considerably. Individual business owners (of hotels and restaurants) have taken on a whole lot of debt. And now they're finding that those loans are coming due. Profit margins are slim and they face significant supply chain disruptions and labor shortages. We're seeing a number of closings in recent months that we didn't even see during COVID. While sales may be up, the cost of labor, the cost of food, and the cost of supplies are so high it's impacting profits. There's pressure to not increase menu prices. Hotel rates seem to be increasing and the demand (for rooms) is strong. The biggest concern that we are experiencing right now is the worker shortage. Some restaurants across the state are closing two or three days a week and they used to be closed just one day a week. We have many hotels in the state that have had to take rooms out of inventory, because they don't have workers to service those rooms. I know of a particular hotel that has 100 rooms out of inventory today. They're profitable without those 100 rooms. But what if they could operate at full capacity? It's a very interesting conundrum. But, we're positive. We're growing. But we're not back to where we could be. We're not actualizing our real potential. One of the things that we pride...