Haywood TDA reacts to Helene problems with grants, budget cut
Floodwaters flow through Waynesville's Frog Level district, damaging a number of small businesses on Sept. 27.
Cory Vaillancourt photo
Two days after Haywood Chamber President and CEO David Francis announced the creation of a small business grant recovery program for businesses impacted by Hurricane Helene, the Haywood County Tourism Development authority jumped on board — in a big way — while tempering its own expectations of what the post-Helene landscape looks like.
“When Helene hit, it really shifted our scope of work,” said Corrina Ruffieux, executive director of the TDA.
The TDA, an entity charged with collecting and disbursing room occupancy taxes, was quick with its initial response to the Sept. 27 hurricane, when conflicting messages both encouraging and discouraging visitation to the storm-struck region made their way into the consciousness of potential visitors from across the region and across the country.
Tourism is big business in the mountain west, and the TDA’s annual collections of about $3 million a year are a testament to that. Economic planners wrung their hands at the prospect of a major economic sector collapsing at the height of the busy fall leaf season.
Once communities were ready to accept visitors, the TDA encouraged them by communicating weekly with partners, posting important travel alerts to its website, compiling a list of businesses that were open or closed, encouraging online shopping, sharing recovery resources for affected businesses and integrating all that into the regional shopwnc.com website.
A new campaign, gifthaywood.com, will go live Nov. 13 to encourage holiday shopping, in partnership with the Chamber, Canton merchants, the Maggie Valley Chamber and the Downtown Waynesville Commission.
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Staff from the TDA also performed FEMA housing assistance outreach, participated in a VisitNC marketing campaign and even created driving maps for visitors unsure how to reach the area in light of closures on Interstate 40 and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
“You really stepped to the challenge,” said Commissioner Jennifer Best, the commission’s representative on the TDA board. “I appreciate what all of the staff did. You met face to face with some things I think you would never have imagined would happen and you really have stepped into being a tremendous — not that you weren't before — but definitely a tremendous community partner. The TDA has, I think, blossomed into new life, in how you participate in the county and in moving forward.”
In reaching out to its partners that support the tourism economy, the TDA also conducted a survey in conjunction with the Chamber from Oct. 18 through Oct. 30, garnering 609 responses.
Almost 25% of respondents were in the lodging industry. Only about 10% said they were fully (90%) booked — some with recovery workers, some with displaced families, some with visitors, some with a mix of all three.
Among non-lodging respondents, the majority of which were retail, recreation, professional services or food and beverage operations, the average number of full-time employees reported was 3.8. More than 44% saw no damage from Helene, with an additional 32% reporting minimal damage. Around 25% categorized their damage as moderate or severe. As far as types of damage incurred, more than half reported disruption of communications and utilities, and well over 30% cited property and infrastructure damage.
A full 80.4% of those businesses have since reopened after being closed an average of seven days.
Nearly 15% of respondents claimed economic losses of more than $50,000; however, the majority expect losses of $10,000 or less.
Of the businesses that have not yet reopened, 51.4% said they had no reopening date determined. A further 14% said it would take at least another month, and 10% said it would be at least two months.
Based on those figures and open-ended questions to business owners, the TDA determined what was needed most was grants — not loans.
“There's all these loans for our businesses,” Ruffieux said. “I know you’ve heard it, but I've heard it too — a lot of our small businesses still have COVID loans. They have [Tropical Storm] Fred loans. They don't want any more loans. And small businesses are the heart of Haywood County.”
The subject of small business assistance has been paramount since Helene laid waste to commercial districts in Canton, Clyde, Waynesville and other municipalities across the region. The most recent relief bill from the General Assembly included $50 million for loans to small businesses, but many businesses are not in a position to take those loans, no matter how favorable the terms. Congress has also failed to act thus far.
That’s why the Chamber, through an economic development arm called the Haywood Advancement Foundation, stepped in on Nov. 4 with a small business grant program.
Initially funded by $100,000 from the HAF and $100,000 from the Colquitts — owners of Cataloochee Ranch and The Swag — as well as private donors and even a $2,000 contribution from the tiny town of Lake Santeetlah in Graham County, the grant program can provide up to $25,000 for qualifying businesses.
On Nov. 6, the TDA chipped in with $100,000 of its own money earned from interest on its holdings. Ruffieux said the HAF partnership is working towards a goal of $500,000.
Although the grants offer a ray of sunshine amid an otherwise cloudy forecast, the TDA is bracing for the revenue loss it knows it will experience; occupancy tax revenue statistics are collected each month, but compiling and reporting them takes two months, so the true impact of October’s closures aren’t yet known.
To remain conservative in budgeting strategy, the TDA voted to lower revenue expectations for the 2024-25 fiscal year from about $3.1 million to about $2.6 million.
That revenue comes from the county’s 4% room occupancy tax. If the TDA is projecting a $500,000 decrease in room occupancy tax revenue, what it’s really projecting is the loss of more than $12 million in visitor spending on hotels, motels, short-term rentals and campgrounds.
When those visitors don’t come, they obviously don’t spend the $48 to $158 per day they usually would on food and drink, events, excursions, tours or trinkets.
The budgetary impact will largely be limited to the TDA’s product development fund, which disburses grants for innovative and sustainable tourism infrastructure that both puts heads in beds and supports long-term economic growth and diversification.
