I look at Asheville’s tourism economy after Helene

Asheville, North Carolina, is a city of approximately 95,000 residents. The mountain town has a growing number of jobs in manufacturing, technology and professional services. As the country works to further diversify its economy, tourism remains a large part of the problem.

Tourists come in almost $3 billion to Asheville per year. But when Hurricane Helene destroyed parts of the city, including the water system, tourism came to a standstill. For locals still recovering from a storm, the question of when and how to invite tourists back is difficult to answer.

Renee Bouchart is one of nearly 30,000 people who rely on tourism to make ends meet in a city with an above-average cost of living. So like many residents, she has a number of jobs. One teaches yoga. The other is cleaning short-term rentals.

When Hurricane Helene hit Asheville in late September, both Bouchart’s runways were affected. The yoga studio where she taught classes, Flow at Foundy, was “completely flooded” when the nearby French Broad River rose to record levels, she said.

With her yoga income on hold, Bouchart relies on her cleaning job for income. But most visitors have canceled fall bookings, meaning much of Bouchart’s revenue has dried up. She cleaned one or two houses every day and earned about $900 a week. Now she’ll be lucky if she gets a third of that.

“I stopped by a building today and it wasn’t being used. So the guests did not come. And it’s like losing money that I thought I was going to get,” she said.

Still, Bouchart said she understands why visitors are currently avoiding Asheville.

“The water will probably be a yellow to sweet tea color. It won’t be obvious when you wash your hands, it’s going to smell like chlorine,” she said.

There is no timeline because when clean drinking water returns to the city. Helene knocked out important infrastructure, and flooding turned the once pristine reservoir into a muddy mess.

Many places in the city still feel like a disaster area. The restaurants that have managed to open are cooperating huge water reservoirs they had to import into the city. And they serve reduced menus on paper plates. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and National Guard are stationed in the city. And the residents still are visiting emergency locations for basic needs such as drinking water, clean showers and laundry.

People are still grieving and recovering from the shock of the storm, said Cayla Clark, a comedian and mental health professional.

“We’re sitting with all this rubble and trying to navigate, how to rebuild, whether to rebuild or move,” said Clark, who organizes weekly support groups for Asheville residents.

“I’ve heard from a lot of people that they feel like they’re spending the whole day in a fog,” she said.

And in that mental state, it is difficult to welcome and serve tourists.

“There are people who come in and say, ‘Wow, there was a storm here?’ That’s really shocking because it feels like, I mean, it was so intense and so big for all of us,” she said.

But what is also difficult now is paying the basic bills.

On a recent Saturday morning, Jeffrey Burroughs sat in their small jewelry store in Asheville’s River Arts District with an iced coffee. Their business wasn’t underwater during Helene.

“We are on the higher side of the railway line, further from the river, and there is only about 20% of the district left at the moment, but it is open,” they said.

Pre-Helene, their store and the entire neighborhood would be filled with shoppers – especially this time of year when the leaves are changing color.

‘There would be so many people walking around here,’ they thought. “And it’s just leaves on the ground.”

On a normal Saturday they would sell at least a few custom bracelets, but on this day they sold zero. Burroughs said they are still coming to terms with the disaster themselves, and it felt awkward reopening the store. But realistically, they had to.

“I have to open, I don’t know for whom, but I have to open because I have to pay rent now,” they said.

Asheville really needs visitors right now, they said.

“Regardless of how I feel about tourism, the reality is that our city is built and defined by the revenue we generate from tourism. That is our current situation,” they said.

Burroughs understands that residents are torn. But generally speaking, people agree on one thing: when tourists come, they should bring patience, plenty of drinking water, and plan to spend some money.