Great ain't good enough: tourism is thriving, so why is the state changing the way it goes after guests?

• Author: Weisbecker, Lee
• Position: Statewide: BUSINESS NEWS FROM ACROSS NORTH CAROLINA

Ted Jagucki seems happy with the current state of affairs. Giant Slice Pizza, sandwiched in the TimBuck II Shopping Village on the upper end of the Outer Banks, relies on tourist trade--"Nine of every 10 people who come into my shop are vacationers," the Ohio transplant says--and business has been brisk the last two years. Sales at the Corolla restaurant are about 10% higher this summer than last.

From 2011 to 2013, the number of annual visitors to state attractions increased more than 40%, to 52.5 million. Only five states host more. Tar Heel tourists spent in excess of $20 billion last fiscal year, leading to the employment of more than 190,000, despite the N.C. Department of Commerce spending only $10 million to $11 million a year to attract them--about half as much as South Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia and less than 24 other states. North Carolina gets away with such scrimping because destinations and local visitor bureaus shell out about $90 million a year to promote their attractions.

Though it's not broken, lawmakers think the system could be better. In June, the General Assembly approved the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina Inc., a private nonprofit that will take over sales and marketing from the Commerce Department on a contract basis. Though its major responsibility will be corporate recruitment, promoters also want to revamp tourism, film and sports marketing, says Rep. Tom Murry, the Wake County Republican who sponsored the bill. "The partnership will give the private sector more of a say in how we reach our targets," which, the pharmacist says, should include increased online advertising. "We need to have a digital component in everything we do."

Richard Lindenmuth, the partnership's interim CEO, will reveal the reorganization plan--one of Gov. Pat McCrary's legislative goals even before he took office--later this year. Tourism officials and executives will get more specifics at an industry conference this month in Wilmington, says Wit Tuttell, the partnership's vice president of tourism and marketing. That's created a lot of uncertainty. "We didn't want to get ahead of ourselves, and we didn't want to make a lot of promises we couldn't keep." So far, about a quarter of the 25 state tourism positions allocated in the 2013-14 budget have been cut due to attrition or dismissal. Local tourism groups are worried their relationships with the state won't survive the switch, says Diane Nordstrom, who retired in...