By Susan Sapienza
Executive Director, Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce

You can learn a lot about Cashiers at the crossroads on a summer morning.

A muddy pickup waits beside a spotless SUV. Contractors head up the mountain while shopkeepers unlock their doors. Houseguests are arriving, friends are meeting for golf, and someone is already making plans for a day on the lake.

By the time I get to the Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce, the porch has its own morning rhythm.

Someone wants to know about trails in Panthertown or on Whiteside Mountain. Someone else needs a lunch or dinner recommendation. A family is studying the maps. And sooner or later, someone will ask where the Cashiers Greenway Ramble begins — or ends.

Inside, the phone rings. A member stops by with a question that reminds me of someone they should know, which leads to an introduction, a conversation and, sometimes, an idea none of us had when the morning began.

It is another summer day in Cashiers.

And somewhere in all that coming and going, $486.85 million changes hands.

Jackson County Visitor Spending Reaches $486.85 Million

North Carolina's 2025 Visitor Impact Report gives Jackson County a lot to celebrate. Visitors spent $486.85 million in Jackson County in 2025, an increase of 5.1% over the previous year.

Tourism directly supports more than 2,643 jobs in Jackson County, and tourism employment grew 7.3% — the largest increase of any county in North Carolina.

But I don't see $486.85 million — not even our part of it — when I drive through the crossroads.

I see people.

Some I know. Some I recognize. Some I will probably meet before the day is over. They are making a living here, making a life here, finding us for the first time or coming back to a place that has somehow become part of their life, too.

$486.85 million is simply one way of counting all of that.

The Work Behind the Welcome

I have the privilege of seeing Jackson County's visitor economy from two slightly different chairs: as Executive Director of the Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce and as a member of the Jackson County Tourism Development Authority Board.

The Jackson County Tourism Development Authority has the job of telling Jackson County's story beyond our county lines, giving people a reason to imagine themselves here before they ever arrive. And when they do arrive, destination marketing meets community.

Visitors don't experience marketing plans or organizational boundaries. They experience a place — its accommodations and restaurants, shops and trails, golf courses and streams, events and, most importantly, its people.

The Jackson County Tourism Development Authority, Jackson County Chamber of Commerce and Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce each have different roles and communities to serve, but our work often intersects. We share ideas, information and resources and look for places where working together makes all of us stronger while allowing each community to remain distinctly itself.

I am grateful for Nick Breedlove and Samantha Nelson at the Jackson County Tourism Development Authority, Todd Vinyard and his team at the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, and my own team and Board at the Cashiers Area Chamber for being such good partners in that work.

What Tourism Looks Like in the Cashiers Area

We can market a destination. We can place advertisements, tell stories, print visitor guides and give people a reason to come.

But eventually, a visitor walks through someone's door.

And what happens next matters.

Someone recommends a trail, serves a meal, makes a bed, pours a cup of coffee, sells a painting, guides a fishing trip or tells someone about the turn they nearly missed. Those encounters become the trip, and enough of them become a relationship with a place.

Tourism supports jobs and businesses, generates tax revenue and helps sustain many of the restaurants, shops and experiences that those of us who live here enjoy, too.

And the strength of that visitor economy is inseparable from the place itself.

The mountains, streams, trails, small businesses and communities that draw people here aren't simply tourism assets. They are home, and growing our visitor economy thoughtfully means protecting what brought people here in the first place.

The number measures spending.

It doesn't measure the welcome.

Behind that $486.85 million are all those gracious people — welcoming our visitors, sharing this place we love and giving them a reason to come back.

About the author: Susan Sapienza is Executive Director of the Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce. She writes about business, community and the connections between people and ideas that help shape the Cashiers area and western North Carolina.