Spotlight On: James Meacham, CEO, Rowan County Tourism

December 2025 — Rowan County continues to experience rising demand from both leisure and business travelers, supported by strong occupancy, expanding short-term rentals and year-round experiential offerings. Invest: spoke with James Meacham, CEO of Rowan County Tourism, about how AI is beginning to influence travel decisions, the economic power of anchor events like the Polar Express, and where he sees new opportunities for investment. “The key is finding a niche that people care about,” Meacham said.

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Over the past year to 18 months, what major shifts have you seen in Rowan County’s tourism economy?

The biggest trend we’ve seen in the last two years is an acceleration in both leisure and business travel. We’ve been running consistently above 70% occupancy, which is a solid number, and 2025 is ahead of 2024, which was ahead of 2023. That’s not the case in every region, but Rowan County has benefited from a healthy mix of demand.

Short-term rentals have been a major factor. In 2015, they were less than 1% of total lodging market revenue; today, they’re about 22%. That is a significant structural shift and has broadened lodging options for visitors while creating small-business opportunities for residents.

We’re also seeing AI play a growing role in travel decisions, especially in the search phase. Travelers are interacting with Google, social media, and other platforms in new ways to plan trips. AI remains a small percentage of overall travel decisions, but its adoption rate resembles what we saw early on with short-term rentals: slow at first, then rapidly compounding. To stay competitive, we must ensure our digital platforms are integrated and up to date with technology.

Another major change is that booking windows keep getting shorter. Whether it’s a tournament, Polar Express, Day Out with Thomas, or a convention, people are deciding and booking more quickly. The trips are still happening, but this requires us to deliver information rapidly so visitors and businesses can make decisions without delay.

The Polar Express experience continues to be a major seasonal draw. How has it shaped local revenue and visitor activity?

Polar Express has been a multiyear success that continues to grow. This season, we expect close to 90,000 in ticket sales, and the event is sold out. It brings a couple of million dollars in economic impact to the region, supporting the North Carolina Transportation Museum, the town of Spencer and the surrounding communities. We also see about 500 room nights tied to the event across commercial lodging and short-term rentals.

What’s especially impactful is how the event transformed a traditionally soft season. Holiday weekends weren’t historically strong for single-night leisure travel, but Polar Express created a high-quality family attraction that fills that gap and incentivizes hotel stays. It also demonstrates the potential for other thematic events.

The key is finding a niche people truly care about. Christmas is a major niche across the South and the country. Families value these experiences, and the event draws heavily from the Charlotte and Winston-Salem areas. The Transportation Museum does a fantastic job staging it, and it requires a large community lift to serve that many visitors.

What resonates most with me as a father is that families leave with meaningful memories. We can focus on revenue and economic impact, which matter, but at the end of the day, we’re people, and the hospitality business is about creating wonderful experiences that encourage return visits and reinforce the human side of travel.

You mentioned experience-based travel. What shifts are you seeing in traveler preferences, and what are people looking for?

Short-term rentals continue to reshape traveler behavior. Their growth surged during the pandemic as people sought more privacy, and they’ve created new small-business opportunities. We now have more than 140 short-term rentals locally.

Overall, people want originality and authentic experiences. Patterson Farms is a great example. They’re one of the largest wholesale tomato producers in North Carolina, but they’re now equally known as an agritourism destination. Pumpkin picking, strawberries, kids’ rides and seasonal activities draw thousands each weekend. Visitors want something distinctive that they can share with family, friends, and followers.

Destinations also need to lean into who they actually are. If you’re not a beach or mountain destination, don’t market yourself as one. Focus on memories and experiences. For us, that means agritourism, historic sites, and the Transportation Museum’s two major family events — Day Out with Thomas and Polar Express. Sports tourism is also important: recruiting softball and soccer teams brings strong overnight demand.

On the business side, travel tied to economic development is critical. Our partnership with the Economic Development Commission ensures that when companies visit, we have strong hospitality infrastructure — lodging, restaurants, and services — to support them.

Across all of this, visitors want customization and control. They want the ability to tailor trips, pair them with promotions, and plan quickly. For tourism organizations, staying current with technology and keeping content fresh through video, text, and storytelling is essential. Fresh content increases both new and repeat visitation.

With new employers arriving and new venues coming online, what opportunities do you see for investors and developers?

Two new hotels — a Marriott product and a Hilton product — are in the pipeline and have franchise and local approval. They are roughly two years out and reflect continued commercial lodging growth. We’re also seeing some new restaurant activity and reinvestment from private tourism sites. Patterson Farms, for example, is expanding food operations and growing their employment base, which shows how agritourism can scale into a major employer.

Our EDC has done strong work attracting companies that need interstate access, logistics and workforce while benefiting from Rowan County’s lower cost of doing business relative to the Charlotte metro. High room-occupancy levels and a previously low room supply helped justify new hotel development. We’ve maintained over 70% occupancy the past couple of years, which is strong.

I always tell my board: I can tell you exactly what’s happening today and clearly describe what’s happened before, but I can’t guarantee tomorrow. As of now, advanced bookings are solid, consumers are holding up, and hotels still have enough pricing power to cover rising labor and operating costs. 2024 was our best year ever, and 2025 is on pace to surpass it, so investor confidence remains strong.

How would you characterize the labor pool for hospitality and tourism, and what challenges remain?

Our hospitality labor force is still smaller than it was in 2019. On the North Carolina Tourism Board, we’ve seen statewide research showing labor as the one metric that hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

When the economy shut down in 2020, restaurants, retail, and lodging were hit hard, and we lost a lot of workers. Many moved into retail, distribution, and other sectors that were hiring at the time, and they haven’t fully come back. That made 2022 and 2023 particularly difficult for hotels and restaurants trying to hire.

Many hotels and restaurants here are still hiring. Statewide and regional initiatives, including a tourism education pilot in Charlotte, are encouraging people to consider hospitality careers, but rebuilding the workforce is challenging.

Technology and AI help with marketing and operational efficiency, but they cannot replace the human side of hospitality. AI can’t serve meals, clean rooms, run attractions, or greet guests at sporting events. We remain a labor-intensive industry, and staffing shortages limit revenue growth. Fewer workers can mean meals not served, lines too long to retain customers, or missed sales at attractions.

We also face a pricing balance. We want to pay labor more, but we can’t simply raise ticket or lodging prices beyond what consumers will tolerate. Independent restaurants especially operate on razor-thin margins. As long as visitors keep coming, we’ll continue hiring and working to strengthen the labor pipeline.

Looking ahead two to three years, what is your outlook for Rowan County tourism and your top priorities?

Our top priority is increasing product development. We’ve recently opened a new farmers market, we’re undertaking a downtown streetscape project, have installed a countywide wayfinding system, and operate a trolley system. As a quasi-public entity, we ask: what can we invest in that makes the destination more welcoming and functional for visitors?

Public-private partnerships are essential. We’ve worked with theater groups, agritourism sites, and the Transportation Museum to develop new attractions and marketing products that drive visitation. When we advance physical product, event development, and marketing simultaneously, we strengthen our economic impact.

We also continue to work closely with investors, from hotel developers to commercial operators, to guide projects from concept to completion. From a marketing standpoint, innovation and technology are central. Being part of a large Charlotte-region travel market means we must differentiate ourselves to not just bring travelers to the region, but bring them specifically to Rowan County.

Rowan County remains a strong value proposition for families and investors, supported by solid leadership and a decade of coordinated public-private momentum. While we watch potential economic headwinds closely, demand remains strong. The real test will be the first quarter of 2026, when leisure travel is seasonally slow, and we’ll be monitoring business travel closely. By spring of 2026, with festivals, events, and college activities returning, we’ll have a good idea of travel demand heading into the rest of 2026.

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