If there's one thing hoteliers in the Asheville area want you to know it's that — despite how devastating Hurricane Helene was last September — the region is open for business.
The category four hurricane, which hit the Southeastern region of the United States from Sept. 24-27 last year, caused significant wreckage and left an economic impact of nearly $60 billion on the state of North Carolina, according to an October report from the Office of State Budget and Management.
Now, several months removed from the destruction, the region has physically recovered, but visitor numbers have not returned to what they were last year. Hotel and tourism organizations are teaming up to share the message that the southern Appalachian region is ready for travelers.
"It's a full-court press right now from all the key stakeholders in Asheville to get folks coming back to western North Carolina," said Steve Palmer, founder of The Indigo Road, which operates the 71-room Flat Iron Hotel in downtown Asheville.
The perfect storm
Hurricane Helene, regarded as a once-in-a-millennium storm, hit just days after a different historic flood in the region. News outlets told the stories of the devastation. Strained reservoirs were unleashed, adding to the region's flooding but preventing more damage to the dams. It was an unprecedented event for a region that rarely experiences a direct hit from a hurricane.
"Who would think that a mountain town needs to be hurricane ready," Palmer said.
When the storm hit, Palmer, who's based in Charleston, said it was 48 hours before he was able to get in contact with his team at The Flat Iron Hotel, and water wasn't restored in the city for six weeks. The hotel itself, which opened its doors in May 2024 after an adaptive reuse renovation, didn't sustain any physical damage.
"God bless the 100-year-old building," Palmer said. "The building was fine. We're right in the center of downtown Asheville, which is kind of on a high point in the city and slopes pretty nicely, so we didn't retain any water."
This allowed The Indigo Road's team to snap into action, immediately contributing to recovery efforts, said Gabriel Perez, hotel operations at The Indigo Road, offering up hospitality and cooking meals for anyone who needed it.
"Everybody knows of the tragedy, but only a few know the resilience and the wonderful things that the Asheville people were doing," he said.
For the weeks and months of recovery, Palmer and Perez were able to relocate some of their Asheville employees to its other hotels and restaurants. The Indigo Road has five hotels and 30 restaurants under its umbrella.
Biltmore Village's historic damage
Of course, not every hotel managed to escape physical damage from the storm. The Grand Bohemian Lodge Asheville, located in the Biltmore Village neighborhood of the city, saw about 5 feet of flooding. General Manager Matthew Lehman said that the first couple of months of the recovery process required the hotel to be cleaned out enough to be safely renovated.
"We spent the last five months in one of the more impressive construction feats I've seen in in some time," Lehman said, crediting the hotel's owner, The Kessler Collection, with investing the time and money to not only bring back the hotel, but to bring it back better than before.
"It's great to work for a family office that takes the long timeline view of success [rather] than just 'What is the immediate ROI?'" he said.
The full renovation, which included expanding the hotel's first-floor common area by eliminating some office space, featured local craftsmen and artisans from the area, Lehman said.
"It was a lot of community engagement in this rebuilding process," he said. "In doing so the question wasn't just, 'How do we build back?' It was 'How do we want to build back as it relates to repositioning the hotel and kind of planting a new flag here in Asheville?'"
Lehman said that all of the hotel's Biltmore neighbors were also hit hard by the flooding, so including them in the hotel's renovation was important to The Kessler Collection.
"As we rebuilt, it was about [sharing] economic success with our partners — procuring everything we can locally," Lehman said, specifying everything from locally sourced mustard and jams to bison and cheese are on the menu.
As of May 8, the hotel is open and ready for bookings, as is its Manor Building, a private, 20-room "mini hotel," as Lehman described it, that can be rented out for large parties, such as weddings or corporate retreats.
"We're very proud of where we are today and excited to be welcoming people back to Asheville," he said.
If you rebuild it, they will come
As ready as both hotels are for occupancy to return to pre-storm numbers, the hoteliers say that hasn't yet happened. The booking window has shrunk, Palmer said, making forecasting and budgeting "nerve-racking."
"We are still dealing with repercussions of a natural disaster of that magnitude when it comes to the economic indexes of our hotel operation, but the road ahead is bright," Perez added. "I believe that the later part of the summer and the fall will bring that influx of people that are looking for something meaningful — they're looking for Asheville."
The data is promising, said Chris Klauda, director of analytics at STR.
"Over the past four weeks, the 13 hurricane markets tracked by STR, which includes Asheville, returned to normal trading patterns," Klauda said. "Asheville's performance is a bit softer following the market's strong March performance, impacted by the Easter/Passover calendar shifts."
However, hoteliers are still feeling a pinch — especially paired with current U.S. economic challenges that are affecting the hospitality industry.
"It's one thing to have an environmental tragedy. It's another to layer an economic tragedy on top of it," Lehman said. "So, how do we get the message out that Asheville is back?"
Working with local organizations, bringing back big events and marketing campaigns are all part of the equation, Lehman said, and he too is optimistic for the future of Asheville — especially for this summer and again in the fall when the leaves change. Asheville is predominately a drive-to market, attracting nearby travelers who visit regularly.
"As things have turned green, we've seen an uptick in business. As the word gets out that people's favorite waterfalls and trails are open, it'll start to tick up," Lehman said. "What we're all very optimistic about is the changing of the leaves. It's a really big deal around here.
"It's a special thing, and there's a million people who didn't get to see it last year, and we hope they're all really eager to drive back and see it this year."
Correction, May 30, 2025: The story has been updated to correct that Indigo Road operates The Flat Iron Asheville rather than owns it.