Tourism in WNC: How Helene has shaped one of our region’s largest industries

Throughout Western North Carolina, tourism is a significant source of income for many, especially during the fall when leaf peepers venture to our region. In Buncombe County alone, visitors generally spend more than 30% of $3 billion annually between October and December. But when Hurricane Helene blew through Western North Carolina in September 2024, the resulting destruction led to a significant decline in tourism across our region despite many counties being ready to welcome visitors just a few weeks after the storm.

In Asheville especially, Helene, “certainly had a chilling effect on travel and hospitality in our region in the most important quarter of the year,” says Vic Isley, CEO of Explore Asheville. “We’re making our way back from what was a $600 million loss in the visitor economy in Buncombe County alone in the fourth quarter.” In total, Helene caused more than $60 billion in damages across the state.

Following the storm, Explore Asheville took many measures to raise funds to offset the losses faced by our region, including sponsoring the Concert for Carolina fundraiser hosted by country musicians Luke Combs and Eric Church, the SOULSHINE concert in New York, and Stars Serving Up Love, the celebrity tennis event that was held in Asheville in February. They also quickly launched the Love Asheville From Afar campaign, an online directory of local small businesses so that stores and makers had more visibility from supporters who couldn’t safely travel to Western North Carolina .“In the early days and weeks and months, it was really about working with communications in our community,” Isley says.

_{Vic Isley, CEO of Explore Asheville}

As of October 2025, the impact from tourism hasn’t quite climbed back to where it was before. “Generally speaking,” Isley says, “we’re hearing from a wide variety of businesses that are part of the travel and creative economies here that they’re generally down about 20 to 30% in revenue at this time.” The United States is also dealing with overreaching national economic concerns, which also affects Western North Carolina’s tourism industry and economic recovery.

“However,” Isley explains, “we’re still making good progress each month. It takes an average of 12 to 14 months to have the visitor economy recover from a natural disaster like a hurricane . . . so we are facing headwinds, and at the same time, we are hopeful for Asheville’s place in the hearts and minds of visitors.”

Asheville was named by Reader’s Digest as “The Nicest Place in America” in September and has been given many other travel accolades throughout the year. Isley says that, “our business development team has booked more conferences and events coming in the next year than we ever have in the history of our organization,” showing a promising future for Asheville and the surrounding areas moving forward.