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While it’s only the first month of the year, the just-released Dare County January 2024 occupancy and meals collections numbers show a significant decrease from the same month in the previous year.
As Lee Nettles, Executive Director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau noted in a video presentation, the tourism-related numbers in January are traditionally small, but this January’s pattern is inescapable.
January 2024 occupancy collections amounted to $15.6 million, down by half (52%) from the $32.3 million in 2023, and they represent the smallest occupancy numbers since 2020.
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On the meals side, the drop-off was not as dramatic, but still the January 2024 total of $11.2 million was about a 26% decrease from the January 2023 total of about $15 million. (The $11.2 in collections was higher than the number for the years preceding 2023 however.)
Nettles said that interpreting the 2024 decreases was something of a matter of perspective, but he was clear about the signals sent in the first month of this year.
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Speaking of the occupancy numbers, he stated “Obviously, when you have a 52% drop, it raises an eyebrow or two.” The meals drop of 26%, he also characterized as “obviously a big number.”
Summing up, he acknowledged the clear trend and its implications. “The numbers are a bit all over the place [but] one thing we are seeing and are foreseeing is spring is going to be soft,” Nettles said. “The numbers are cooling off.”
