Phillips hits Burke tourism high points during Coffee at the Museum

Burke Tourism Development Authority CEO Ed Phillips’ hour-plus presentation at Thursday’s Coffee at the Museum program was jam-packed with information.

But amid a torrent of fascinating factoids, Phillips took a moment to highlight Burke County’s most important tourist draw.

“Why do people come here?” Phillips asked rhetorically. He then motioned toward a poster-sized print of a spectacular photo taken from atop Wiseman’s View, overlooking the Linville Gorge. “They come here for this.”

Burke County doesn’t call itself Nature’s Playground for nothing. It sits in the middle of some of the most scenic, bucolic, wilderness areas in the United States.

Since Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina last fall, outdoor tourism everywhere has taken a hit. Large sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway remain closed, as do many of the amenities that bring in tourist traffic.

Phillips said it’s still too soon to tell if Burke’s visitor numbers will take a major hit, but foot traffic at the downtown TDA office has been promising. As of Thursday, the office had seen only eight fewer visitors for the period of January through the end of May than during the same span in 2024.

Later, he jokingly encouraged audience members at the Burke Museum of History to drop by the office so the Visitors Center would be sure to beat last year’s numbers.

INTERESTING STATISTICS

Phillips ran through a laundry list of interesting facts, statistics, and observations.

In 2019, Our State Magazine published a mountain issue in October 2019, and 78 pages were devoted to Burke County.

North Carolina is the third-fastest growing state in the country, trailing only Texas and Florida.

Burke has approximately 600 hotel and motel rooms and 160 vacation rentals.

Families of students who attend the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics–Morganton spent at least one night in a local motel or rental on 33% of their visits to the county last year.

A quarter of those parents said they experienced difficulty finding an overnight accommodation that suited them.

Some of the current tourist draws in the county are things Phillips said many folks may not be aware of, including destination weddings, beauty pageants, and dance contests (which are hosted primarily by the City of Morganton Municipal Auditorium, CoMMA).

Recently reopened South Mountains State Park is the largest state park in N.C. at 21,000 acres. The Jacob Fork River offers the closest trout fishing to the Charlotte area.

The Blue Ridge Parkway attracts 15 million visitors per year, but vast sections of it are closed due to damages sustained during Helene.

Work on the parkway began in 1933 and wasn’t completed until 1985, making it a 52-year project.

The U.S. Forest Service is refurbishing the long-dormant information cabin on old U.S. 105, which leads to Wiseman’s View. Phillips said the forest service is concerned because so many hikers go into the rugged Linville Gorge woefully unprepared for the demanding hike.

Recently opened restaurants and others that are in the works should bring between 175 and 200 new hospitality jobs to the county but filling those positions might be difficult based on current employment trends.

Phillips said the TDA’s billboard, which is on the west-bound side of I-40 between Morganton and Hickory, is one of the tallest on the route.

Helene was an unprecedented event for WNC, so tourism authorities are using Hurricane Katrina’s effect on the New Orleans area as a baseline to predict what might happen here. Phillips said of the businesses there that were closed for more than six months after the storm, 60% never reopened.

Rangers for the forest service’s Grandfather District, of which Burke is a part, told Phillips recently their budget for repairing storm damage is $2.6 billion, and it will take from five to 10 years to complete the work.

Using cellphone data, the TDA said the Burke Museum of History has had 4,600 visitors, including 2,900 unique visitors, in the last six months. Their average visit lasted 47 minutes.

Phillips wrapped up his talk with some words of praise for the museum. When the TDA hosts magazine writers or other journalists and takes them on tours of the county, he always asks afterward what their “sleeper” attraction — one that far exceeded their expectations — was.

“It’s always the history museum. Always,” he said.