Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
The Swain County Tourism Development Authority (TDA) plans to buy a set of Christmas designs that Executive Director Mary Ann Shea said would be much bigger and more tailored to the local area than previous years.
“It’s going to be a very big show,” Shea said after the meeting. “The magnitude of it, the quality – it will have three to four times the amount of displays.”
There was no Christmas light show in 2023, but Shea said it would be coming back this year.
While the 2022 light display was leased from Shadracks, the TDA intends to purchase lights this year to keep as their own.
At a meeting last Wednesday, the TDA board members saw a presentation from North Carolina company Mosca Design, which provides decorative displays for holiday events to various towns. The presentation showed off what Mosca could do for Swain County specifically, for a new display titled Smoky Mountain Christmas Light Spectacular to be held at the Great Smoky Mountains Event Park.
According to what was presented, the drive through lights show would run for a little over a mile and would have 14 separate themed areas including a manger scene, designs of classic Christmas characters such as Santa and elves, and some more localized displays for the Smokies, including trees and a customized train reading “Polar Express” on the outside.
Shea said the display the TDA wants to buy would be made more specific to Swain County’s specific identifiers. She said the TDA would be going full speed ahead on holiday events this year and in the future.
“I know the TDA really wants to capitalize on the holidays for locals and tourists,” she said. “It’s a logical move to incorporate what’s going on here, such as the Polar Express, to bring in new visitors who have never been here before.”
AdventureELEVATE
Shea also spoke about the TDA’s prospective partnership with the Adventure Travel Trade Association, which is holding its AdventureELEVATE conference in Asheville. The event takes place every year and this is the first time it will take place in the southeast. Shea said Swain County was in talks to get the AdventureELEVATE people to visit the area when they were in town this summer.
According to a press release from Explore Asheville, AdventureELEVATE takes place over three days and features speakers and conferences as adventure travel professionals sample the features of various cities. Shea said it was a good opportunity for the area. She said there were six writers who were in talks to stay in a cabin in the area.
“These are big writers,” she said. “We’re not talking about a blog.”
She said the group had trouble finding lodging, though, as many places around Swain are already booked up.
“Almost every cabin rental was booked for June and July,” Shea said. “They’re coming June 11 through June 13, and they had trouble. People are going to have a hard time finding a place to stay for the 4th of July weekend. Christmas will have substantially longer waits. People are going to push back a little. The Polar Express was sold out last year. I’m going to say book now… if people wait until June or July, they’re not going to get on the Polar Express.”
Money matters
At the meeting, Shea said the TDA had broken even with its budget on the December lodging tax, which came out to $123,171. The number was 13% down from the previous year.
Shea advised the board to use their March meeting as a budget planning meeting to make sure they had everything in line for the coming year.
In addition, board member Eugene Shuler said he wanted to speak with the county commissioners about the possibility of raising the occupancy tax by 2%, which he’d brought up at the previous county commission workshop but said he was unsure if the commissioners would go for it.