DARE COUNTY, N.C. (WAVY) — Tourism dollars for the Outer Banks are on the decline, with numbers down by about half from the year before. But staff at the visitors bureau say they’re not worried.
In the wide open beaches of the Outer Banks, tourism ballooned during the pandemic years.
Recent data from Dare County, however, shows the boom has started to come back down. So far, they are still above pre-pandemic levels.
Tourism trends for the Outer Banks are tracked with the amount of money collected with its occupancy tax. The amount collected per year went up by about 40 percent from 2019 to 2023, according to officials.
While January is not peak tourism season for the beach, they are working to gather numbers from that month now.
Last January, the occupancy tax gathered about $32 million. This past January, it went down to about $15 million.
Coming back from the pandemic boom is not a concern to the visitor bureau, especially since $15 million is still more than double the amount from a pre-pandemic January.
“Unprecedented number of visitors during that time period, lot of first time visitors,” explained Lee Nettles, executive director for the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau. “We were happy to welcome them.”
Nettles says tourism rakes in nearly $2 billion per year for Dare County, and the industry makes up about 45 percent of their jobs.
To view the county’s occupancy tax data, click the link here.
Continue to check WAVY.com for updates.
