After Helene, the Great Smoky Mountains are desperate for tourists
Operators face a wave of cancellations as they stare down steep repair costs, but say “it feels a little unethical” to court visitors while neighbors struggle.
October was supposed to be Gianna Carson’s busiest month of the year. Instead, she estimates she’s lost upward of $15,000 since Hurricane Helene hit her Bryson City, North Carolina, bakery and vacation rental a week ago.
Now, in addition to the number of bakeshop transactions plummeting from 300 a day to around 50, she said she’s “experiencing mass cancellations” at her guesthouse as tourists who usually flock to the area for its rich autumn colors think twice about coming.
Some local authorities have urged visitors to stay away as responders assess the casualties and repair critical infrastructure, including washed-out roads. But many small-business owners who were spared severe destruction in Swain County — nestled in the Great Smoky Mountains, where tourism brings the state more than $2 billion per year — are desperate for revenue and facing an uncomfortable dilemma: how to tell people they’re open for business without being insensitive to neighbors who’ve lost power, homes or loved ones.
Floodwaters receded quickly this week from downtown Bryson City, N.C.Courtesy Gianna CarsonA view of Bryson City shortly after Helene swept through, swamping local storefronts.Courtesy Gianna CarsonBryson City, Swain’s largest town, is about 65 miles west of Asheville, the seat of Buncombe County, where at least 70 people were killed by the storm. In recent days, residents there have been lining up for groceries, shelter and outlets for phone charging. But in Swain (population 14,000, a fraction of Buncombe’s nearly 270,000), entrepreneurs like Carson see a “secondary catastrophe” brewing for the tourism-based economy.
Carson, whose two-suite property can host up to 11, was concerned not to appear “flippant about it — there are some towns beside us that have had some very catastrophic damage,” she said. “But for us, the damage is going to come a little bit later, when everyone does not come.”
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