According to figures released Tuesday (yesterday) by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, tourism and travel spending across the U.S. “decelerated” during the first quarter of 2015, growing at an annual rate of just 2 percent. That’s down from the 4.9 percent increase the nation saw in the final quarter of 2014. BEA attributed the decline to reduced spending on food services and drinking places and “all other transportation-related commodities.”
Meanwhile, North Carolina has seen no such slowdown. While figures that would allow an exact apples-to-apples comparison were not available, state tourism officials were able to provide data that showed that N.C. is outperforming the national average in a number of ways. Public Relations Manager Scott Peacock says this year, demand for hotel rooms in North Carolina was up 4.9 percent as of April, compared to the 3.8 percent increase the rest of the nation saw over the same period. The North Central Region, which covers the Triangle area, was slightly ahead of the state average at 5 percent. That’s according to data collected by Smith Travel Research.