Tourism tax money helps with trail projects. But could it do more?

New trail improvements will attract visitors and counter their damaging impact in Pisgah National Forest. But much more work -- and more money -- is needed.

The 2019 rebuilding of Cantrell Creek Trail, near South Mills Rivers, has been cited as a model for future trail improvement projects.

South Mills River, which was sometimes clouded with sediment from Cantrell Creek Trail, runs fast and clear on a recent evening.

By Dan DeWitt

Brevard NewsBeat

PISGAH NATIONAL FOREST — Cantell Creek Trail was once rutted and chronically muddy — “a creekbed that thinks it's a trail,” according to a 2016 review on the Trailforks mountain biking website.

The path was rebuilt on higher ground in 2019, drastically reducing the erosion that had dumped sediment into South Mills River and threatened its aquatic life.

On a chilly evening last week, not long after a couple of days of steady rain, the new path remained firm and dry. The creek, several feet removed from the trail, ran fast and clear. So did the prime trout-fishing waters of South Mills River.

The project has been cited as a model for future trail projects, including three that are either underway or due to be completed this year. Like the improvements of Cantrell Creek Trail, these jobs aim to protect natural features and/or enhance the enjoyment of the forest, and can only be completed with donations of money and labor from a variety of public and private sources.

One contributing organization is Transylvania County Tourism, which has increasingly recognized that, along with marketing, “part of our role is to deal with the impact of heavy visitation and work to ensure a thriving and sustainable tourism industry,” Executive Director Clark Lovelace wrote in an email.

But should such tourism development authorities (TDAs) do more? That’s the debate in Asheville, where city leaders and even a prominent group of hotel owners have called for the state to allow the Buncombe County TDA to spend less on attracting visitors and more on bolstering the heavily trafficked features these visitors use.

Transylvania County Tourism already spends a higher percentage of its funds on projects than the Buncombe TDA, and because this share is set by North Carolina law, amending the rate of allocation would require a long-term, statewide conversation.

But it's a conversation worth starting, said trail advocates and even a Transylvania Tourism board member. The long list of needed upgrades to degraded tails in Pisgah and the summer traffic jams at its entrance on US 276 are proof enough, they say, of both the abundance of visitors and the need to bolster the meager federal funds available to accommodate them.

“I think that cities and counties need to reexamine the relationship they have with TDA money . . . and how much marketing is actually needed and the impact that increased tourism is having on the local recreational infrastructure,” said Daniel Sapp, a vice president of the Pisgah Area SORBA trail advocacy group.

Improvements on deck

SORBA has taken the lead on one upcoming project, rebuilding a 2.2-mile section of the Black Mountain Trail, due to be completed later this year with the help of a $100,000 state Recreational Trails Program grant and the Pisgah Conservancy, which conducted required environmental studies.

Like many Forest trails, Black Mountain once served as a road for loggers wanting direct access and cuts straight up the mountain. This created one of the cycling thrill rides Pisgah is known for, but also left the path vulnerable to erosion that clouds streams and, ultimately, Davidson River.

The current trail is “eroding and well beyond repair,” Sapp said, and pointed to one indication of how closely the rebuilt route will hug the contours of the mountainside: it is expected to be 1.4 miles longer than the old trail.

As with an earlier SORBA project to rebuild the lower stretch of the trail, the aim is to create a path that is both sustainable and fun to ride. “It’s going to be one of the coolest trails in the region,” he said.

Another new route -- one that will be open for hikers, cyclists and horse riders -- is the 1.3-mile Joel Branch Connector, which is also scheduled for completion later this year. It will be a rarity in the forest -- a new trail, which in this case is justified because it will link Joel Branch Road and, ultimately, the entrance of the Forest at U.S. 276, with Horse Cove Road, which leads to Bracken Mountain Trail and its trailhead near downtown Brevard.

Pisgah Conservancy, which previously led the $150,000 Cantrell Creek Trail project, is also the lead organization on this connector. It secured a $25,000 grant from Transylvania Tourism to help with the work, as well as smaller pledges from Brevard and Transylvania County.

The benefit is not just the loop itself. By way of the city’s network of bike trails, it also allows cyclists to start and finish in the city, said Aaron Baker, chair of Transylvania Always, a committee formed by the Tourism board four years ago to address the impact of increased visitation.

“The traffic is just crazy in the summer,” Baker said. And the connector will “create a loop that you can do from town without having to get in your car.”

The most ambitious future project is a comprehensive rebuilding and restoring of the extensive network of trails at a hiking mecca near the Blue Ridge Parkway that draws millions of visitors annually — Graveyard Fields.

The first phase is to improve three sections of trail to allow access to the north end of the Fields, said John Cottingham, executive director of the Conservancy, which is heading up the project. The first of these sections was finished last year. The other two, including a stretch that will be improved by the Forest Service with Recreational Trail funding, will be completed in the coming months.

From there, the Conservancy will “will repair and restore the heavily-used and eroded trails with hiker-friendly, sustainable trails,,” its website says. “Replanting and restoring native plants is also key to this project and the protection of indigenous species.”

“We’re hoping to really start in earnest in the next few years and do a steady stream of upgrades in that area,” Cottingham said.

The money problem

That’s the “part you see,” he said. What people often don’t realize is the years of groundwork required to get to the building stage. All new trails require plan approval from federal agencies, studies of archeological and botanical features that might be distrubed, and the assembly of needed funds and labor.

In the case of Cantrell Creek, those sources included groups whose goals sometimes conflict, including Backcountry Horsemen, SORBA and Trout Unlimited, as well as a $20,000 contribution from Tourism. The Graveyards Fields project has the backing of a grant from the Lastinger Family Foundation, Cottingham said,  “and there’s a game plan. But it’s very slow. It’s very tedious.”

What would help, of course, is money, especially a dedicated, reliable funding source such as a larger share of the “bed taxes” that TDAs receive from guests of hotels and short-term rentals. Financial backing changes the perception of plans from lines drawn on maps to future realities, Cottingham said, and helps convince partners to jump on board.

“It gives projects more urgency and a rationale for focusing resources,” he said.

This funding will definitely not come from the Ranger District, whose budget for trail maintenance has been so negligible in recent years -- holding steady at about $50,000 annually -- that the district relies on volunteer partners for routine upkeep of its entire 380-mile network of trails.

“It’s shocking,” Baker said of the allocation. “It’s almost kind of embarrassing, really.”

This shortage of funds shows up clearly in the three-year old Pisgah Ranger District’s Recreation Project 2018. The previously mentioned projects account for only four of the 13 trail improvements listed in this plan. Some of this work is specifically intended to fix the damage of overuse, including by out-of-town visitors. And, without funding, little or no progress has been made on several of these needed repairs, said District Ranger David Casey.

Are TDAs a potential source?

The debate about spending more bed tax money on recreation infrastructure has long simmered in Asheville, where “overtourism” is a familiar term. Three-quarters of that group’s $25 million in annual revenue is devoted to promotion. And along with the hotel owners, the Asheville City Council has recently requested — so far unsuccessfully — that state lawmakers free up more money for projects by cutting this allocation to the state minimum of two-thirds.

Transylvania Tourism already spends that minimum amount, and Lovelace says the organization has been a leader in using its remaining revenue to address the impact of increased visitation. 

This is “not something you typically see from a Tourism Development Authority and certainly not one of our size,” he said.

Besides forming Transylvania Always and donating to Pisgah trail projects, Tourism has backed a strategic plan for French Broad River and awarded a $100,000 grant for the proposed Ecusta Trail bike path. And some of its marketing campaigns, such as the Leave it Better anti-litter initiative, have focused not on drawing more visitors but mitigating the damage they do, Lovelace said.

The group “has been very innovative in looking at what sorts of projects it can do to limit the stress” of tourist traffic, said Mike Hawkins, the county’s longtime representative on the Tourism board in his former role as county commissioner and a current member of state’s Travel and Tourism Board.

“They’re great about that,” Casey said.

So the argument is not with the local organization, but how the statewide funding requirements play out in Transylvania County and especially Pisgah.

The summer crowds prove it's a well-established destination for outdoor recreation with little need of further promotion. Maintaining this status requires maintaining the trail network that is one of its main draws.

“The tourism industry is largely supported by the recreation infrastructure that exists here, so we definitely feel that there's a need to see more funding,” said Doug Miller, a Pisgah SORBA vice president.

Occupancy tax revenue is an inviting source, one that is expected to grow in the coming years with the continuing boom in short-term rentals and the opening of planned hotels.

Despite steep declines in revenues after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Tourism ended up collecting a record $970,000 in fiscal year 2020, Lovelace said, and is “currently slated to surpass that amount considerably” in 2021. Partly because the group cut back on marketing to discourage potentially dangerous visitation during peak periods of Covid spread, he said, its fund balance has also grown and is projected to total $567,000 at the end of the fiscal year.

If the state allows more of the money to go to projects like Cantrell Creek and Graveyard Fields, said Cottingham, “I certainly would welcome that.”

So would Tourism board member and Brevard Mayor Pro Tem Mac Morrow.

Seeing how many community projects the group has contributed to with one-third of its revenue -- “I could name you 14 or 15 things off the top of my head,” he said -- makes him think how much could be done with a 50-percent share.

“I think that would be wonderful,” he said.

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