The newly formed Jackson County Tourism Development Authority voted last week to enter into a $50,000 contract with a nationally renowned branding and marketing company out of Virginia.

The newly formed Jackson County Tourism Development Authority is taking on the task of “branding,” an important first step for the entity that’s been tasked with developing a unified tourism promotion strategy for the county.

A rain-induced landslide in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park left a gaping hole in U.S. 441, but its impact could leave a lot bigger hole in the local economy if park officials are not able to fix the road in time to save at least part of the tourist season.

Tourism numbers are looking good for Haywood County so far this year, and tourism leaders are keeping their fingers crossed that a cold winter will drive visitors to Cataloochee’s slopes.

After more than a year of wrangling, a new Jackson County tourism authority was finally created this week, its board members officially named, and formal marching orders handed down.

The overhaul of tourism operations in Jackson County are intended to bring a new approach to tourism marketing and promotions, and hopefully increase tourism. Past tourism marketing efforts were stymied by turf wars and duplication of efforts by similar agencies.

Maggie Valley is trying to figure out what exactly it wants to be.

Maggie once reigned supreme in the mountain tourist trade, witnessed by the row of restaurants, bars, hotels and gift shops that line the valley’s main drag.

A festering disagreement over how to overhaul Jackson County’s tourism agency is coming to an end, but some lodging owners who have resisted the changes aren’t happy about it.

A tourism task force in Jackson County has spent several months formulating a major overhaul of the county’s tourism agency, but the recommendations seem to be dead-on-arrival now that they’ve landed at the county commissioners’ doorstep.

As Maggie Valley business owners and leaders look toward the town’s future, it is unclear how large a role town leaders realistically expect the amusement park Ghost Town in the Sky to play.

Maggie cheered when Ghost Town in the Sky reopened this summer, but with only a small portion of the rides and attractions up and running, the real potential of the amusement park to lure hordes of tourists back to the struggling town hasn’t been realized overnight.

After rescuing the shuttered park from foreclosure earlier this year, Ghost Town’s new owner Alaska Presley has been slowly whittling away at a laundry list of projects she hopes to complete before it closes down for the winter and reopens next spring.