Helene-battered but open for business, the Great Smoky Mountains are desperate for tourists

October was supposed to be Gianna Carson’s busiest month of the year. Instead, she estimates she’s lost upward of $15,000 since Hurricane Helene hit her Bryson City, North Carolina, bakery and vacation rental a week ago.

Now, in addition to the number of bakeshop transactions plummeting from 300 a day to around 50, she said she’s “experiencing mass cancellations” at her guesthouse as tourists who usually flock to the area for its rich autumn colors think twice about coming.

Some local authorities have urged visitors to stay away as responders assess the casualties and repair critical infrastructure, including washed-out roads. But many small-business owners who were spared severe destruction in Swain County — nestled in the Great Smoky Mountains, where tourism brings the state more than $2 billion per year — are desperate for revenue and facing an uncomfortable dilemma: how to tell people they’re open for business without being insensitive to neighbors who’ve lost power, homes or loved ones.

Bryson City, Swain’s largest town, is about 65 miles west of Asheville, the seat of Buncombe County, where at least 70 people were killed by the storm. In recent days, residents there have been lining up for groceries, shelter and outlets for phone charging. But in Swain (population 14,000, a fraction of Buncombe’s nearly 270,000), entrepreneurs like Carson see a “secondary catastrophe” brewing for the tourism-based economy.

Carson, whose two-suite property can host up to 11, was concerned not to appear “flippant about it — there are some towns beside us that have had some very catastrophic damage,” she said. “But for us, the damage is going to come a little bit later, when everyone does not come.”

She added, “I’ve got 12 people who depend on me for their paychecks, and lots of bills to pay.”

Operators say recreation in Great Smoky Mountains National Park — whose more than 13 million visitors last year nearly tripled the level at Yellowstone — surged during the pandemic. Bryson City’s remote location appealed to guests looking for socially distanced activities, said Karen Proctor, executive director of the Swain County Chamber of Commerce. The county’s tax revenues from accommodations “almost doubled” during the summer of 2020, before international travel picked back up, she said.

“People expanded during the Covid years. They added on to a restaurant, or they opened a second location,” largely with their own money, since most federal aid went to county relief programs, Proctor said.

Now, many in the area fear an economic backslide.

The Folkestone Inn, a 10-room hotel in Bryson City, lost more than $10,000 within three days as at least 32 people canceled reservations through October, said co-owner Toni Rowe. Isaac Herrin lost most of the inventory in his boutique retail shop, Selah Collection, to flooding last week. He said his other business, a cabin rental company, is now “staring at 100 cancellations” into December.

“None of us can stay afloat just solely based on the local tourism or local patronage,” said Herrin, who blames some of his misfortune on rental platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo for allowing guests to cancel reservations for refunds out of “hysteria.”

Around the same time that one TikToker went viral for venting about her difficulty canceling an Airbnb in nearby Hendersonville, the company clarified that it was activating its “major disruptive events” policy for severely affected parts of the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. Airbnb declined to comment, and Vrbo didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“The reality is, people can access our town fine, and by the end of this week about 90% to 95% of our businesses will be reopened,” Herrin predicted. “Our streets are clean now.”