Why is Tourism Important?

It creates and sustains jobs.

Tourism is Currituck County’s largest economic driver, and tourism creates jobs, helps support and grow existing businesses, and creates an environment for new tourism-related businesses and entrepreneurship. And tourism-related businesses are not just accommodations, restaurants, and retail establishments. The tourism industry also depends upon such businesses as banking institutions, constructions companies, utilities, financial services, etc., that do not directly deal with visitors but are necessary to support our tourism industry.

Tourism puts a destination “on the map.”

Tourism gives the locality a chance to show itself off and raise its profile in the world.

Tourism puts a focus on infrastructure.

It provides an incentive for investment in infrastructure such as roads, trails, rail networks, and local medical and education facilities.

Tourism shines a spotlight on the environment and the history of a locality.

It can provide economic incentives for a place to preserve, maintain, and regenerate the environment in both urban and rural settings and to preserve and restore historical regions and structures. Occupancy tax was used to restore the Whalehead, the Historic Jarvisburg Colored School and is being used to stabilize and restore the Historic Jail. Occupancy tax also built the Currituck Maritime Museum which educated over 88,000 people during the first year of operations (opening in July 2021).

Tourism provides economic benefits that provides amenities to residents and brings vibrancy to a community.

In 2021, the economic impact of visitation was at an all-time high and saw a spending increase of 26% over 2020. (Please note that the data provided below is reported by Visit NC which provides the data from the preceding season in August of the following year – for example, economic data from the 2020 season is provided in August of 2021. Data for 2022 will not be available until August of 2023):

• Generated $473,170,000 per year in direct tourist spending

• Produced $100,000,000 per year in worker income & paychecks