The Oct. 14 Franklin Tourism Development Authority meeting included an update on the local tourism industry following Hurricane Helene.
Morgan Stewart, owner of Stewart Communications, which manages the TDA’s marketing efforts, was living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. He recalled how the devastation impacted the tourism and convention businesses, and put the lessons learned there to work here locally in the days following Helene.
“We started reaching out to all of our stakeholders to find out how they had fared,” Stewart said. They soon noticed a trend with cancellations at the lodging businesses, Fish Tale’s guided trips were canceled, and businesses were seeing reduced retail the weekend following the storm and they feared that would continue.
“I started getting very concerned about the idea that we may be facing a wider path of destruction from the storm after the storm,” Stewart said, adding if the businesses didn’t make it through the season there “could be trouble for a lot of us.”
Stewart said he reached out to Rep. Karl Gillespie, Sen. Kevin Corbin, Smoky Mountain Host, town and county officials, the Franklin Chamber of Commerce, and other tourism-related organizations to put together a meeting. He said they wanted “to get ahead of this so that we had our messaging ready to go when we were ready to say we were open.”
“All of the counties were suffering,” Stewart said. “All of the counties were not real happy with the idea that the governor was saying all of Western North Carolina’s closed. The far west counties really needed help.”
Stewart said he lobbied for state and federal funding for tourism marketing, preferably in the form of grants. “Our small businesses really can’t afford to keep paying off loans and more loans,” he said, adding that they hope the next round of state funding for storm recovery will include funds for marketing.
Stewart Communications had started the process of rebuilding the TDA’s website prior to the storm, with the new “Experience Franklin” tagline and logo. Stewart said they hope to get that up soon and that they will be sensitive to the messages that are sent out related to being open for tourism. They also launched a new “Experience Franklin NC” Facebook page.
Stewart said by working with Smoky Mountain Host and others they can collaborate on better getting the message out that the area is open for visitors. “The idea is that if we work together, we will strengthen our messaging. You know, it will be a better, stronger message if we have one voice.” (Related story on Page 9 of the Oct. 23, 2024, edition of the Press.)
Tim Crabtree from Motor Company Grill said business was slow immediately following the storm, but then picked up as Hurricane Milton started threatening Florida. “There are so many people in town from Florida,” he said. While he was out of town one day his manager texted him asking if they could take down the online ordering because they couldn’t keep up with all the orders coming in.
Hannah Edwards from Yonder Community Market said they too have been busy; it was her 14th straight day of working and she wasn’t expecting a day off until later in the week. “We have been covered up,” she said.