Conference considers state workforce, infrastructure solutions.

This story first appeared in the Feb. 21 print edition of GSA Business report.

Gov. Henry McMaster regaled the crowd at Greenville's Hyatt Regency ballroom: several hundred hailing from Abbeville to York for an event most called "GovCon 2022."

"We were up in Washington to have the national governor's association, and the Republican Governors Association were meeting up there," he told the audience. "We went to the White House, and we were in a room about this big, having a round table discussion."

President Joe Biden had called on each of the 32 governors who circled the conference room for the meeting until, according to McMaster, the president exclaimed, "'Now, we'll hear from the governor of the great state of South Carolina, Henry Master tell me about Myrtle Beach!"

Cheers erupted across the Hyatt ballroom, peaking to a roar from a table one could assume to be the Myrtle Beach delegation.

"By that time outside, I think it was something like 20 degrees and the weatherman said it felt like 10," McMaster continued. "So of course, I said, 'I wish I were there right now.' And about half the room said, 'Me too!'"

The story didn't fall on deaf ears. Many of the visitors at the S.C. Annual Governor's Conference on Tourism and Travel from Feb. 7-9 were from out-of-state and were taking notes, according to Bill Miles, president and CEO of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce.

Miles since has witnessed the same trend on the island with remote workers. Even as tourism languished across the country, they came in droves to the island, and he believes they may be here to stay.

"We see the demand for the next six months outpacing where the demand was in 2019," he told GSA Business Report. "Real estate sales have been really, really strong."

Home to the RBC Heritage Golf Tournament and numerous other courses, Hilton Head especially benefitted from the Palmetto State's 27% increase in golf rounds and spike in outdoor recreation since 2019.

"It's been really encouraging to see the rebound of tourism and to be able to have these tourism professionals come together and be able to see the results of the hard work that's taken place during the pandemic to be able to generate the numbers that have come in," Miles said.

The bottom's fallen out

During Duane Parrish's "state of tourism" keynote on Feb. 7, the S.C. Parks, Recreation and Tourism director reiterated that South Carolina's ability to cater to new trends in tourism helped the industry...