Spotlight On: Susan Amey, President & CEO, Discover Durham

Key points:

• • Durham’s tourism remains strong but faces headwinds, with shorter booking windows and economic uncertainty shaping demand.
• • Growth in the Triangle and Durham’s culinary, cultural, and entrepreneurial identity continue to drive visitor appeal.
• • Collaboration and long-term planning are central to expanding events, infrastructure, and sustainable tourism growth.

April 2026 — In an interview with Invest: Raleigh-Durham, Susan Amey, president and CEO of Discover Durham, shared her perspective on the opportunities and challenges shaping Durham’s visitor economy, from its entrepreneurial spirit and culinary reputation to the long-term investments positioning the city for sustainable growth. “Collaboration is our most cherished value here, and everything we do, we seek to do in partnership across the community,” Amey said.

Join us at caa’s upcoming leadership summits! These premier events bring together hundreds of public and private sector leaders to discuss the challenges and opportunities for businesses and investors. Find the next summit in a city near you!

How would you describe the tourism and hospitality environment in Durham, and what trends are shaping visitor activity today?

Travel and tourism have been strong and steady as we’ve come out of the pandemic, and we’ve been regrowing our visitor economy. Durham attracts more than 13 million visitors each year who contribute over a billion dollars to our local economy, but right now, tourism is facing some headwinds. Gas prices are going up, geopolitical factors have introduced some uncertainty, and people are cautious enough about the economy that they’re a little hesitant to commit to travel. More often than in the past, people are booking trips with short lead times, sometimes as few as six days out. So, booking windows have shortened considerably. 

That said, we feel positive about the future. We’re in a region of the country where the population is growing rapidly, and we get a lot of attention, with a lot of companies interested in being here or moving here. We’re all eager to see the economy and political environment become a little more stable.

What makes Durham an ideal destination for both leisure travelers and meetings or major events?

Durham has a unique and strong personality, and people tend to hear about that. This is a community that’s entrepreneurial and creative. We have a lot of artists, a lot of makers, and that creates businesses and places to visit that are truly one of a kind. We get a lot of people who’ve heard about our local restaurants — they have such a great reputation — and iconic places in the community that visitors are eager to come and explore. We also have several festivals and events created right here in Durham that you’re not going to find anywhere else. 

Regionally, the Research Triangle is a vibrant area. It’s not only Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, but many other communities, each with its own personality and events. We are a highly educated area that draws people from around the world, and that diversity lends a lot of different ideas and energy into making this an exciting place to be — conveniently located along two major interstates and fewer than 15 miles away from the world-class Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

Durham has always punched above its weight when it comes to local restaurants and the quality of what chefs do here. We now have four Michelin-recognized restaurants in Durham. Those businesses have seen tremendous benefit, and it just reinforces the reputation Durham already had for culinary excellence.

How is the broader regional growth of the Triangle influencing Durham’s tourism sector and the opportunities available to local businesses?

Durham is a community full of small businesses, and many of those are in the hospitality sector. The influx of people — visitors and new residents alike — is a real fuel for those businesses. People arriving in Durham have usually already heard about our reputation for great restaurants before they get here, and they are eager to pull up a list and start making their way through it. We work hard to keep track of the most recently opened spots, make sure the community knows about what’s coming online, and give people the tools to build their own bucket list.

We also think a lot about how we can get in front of new employees when companies set up shop here, making sure those newcomers know what the highlights are and where to go. It’s to everyone’s benefit to have this continual growth in new residents and in the visitors who come in.

How are cities competing today to attract visitors, conventions, and major sporting events, and where does Discover Durham fit into that?

Cities recognize, perhaps more now than ever before, how much they are competing with each other to offer the pieces that contribute to quality of life for people who live there, and to create interesting ways for people to engage when they visit. There has been a real arms race in communities investing in what they have to offer: sports facilities, festivals and major events programming, recreational infrastructure, attractions, and parks.

We are aware of that. As an organization, over the last couple of years, we have stepped out in a new way, moving beyond simply promoting what the community has to offer to actually being part of creating it. That shift is one of the most significant things happening in destination marketing organizations right now.

Collaboration is central to how Discover Durham operates. How do you leverage partnerships across the community to shape the visitor economy?

Collaboration is our most cherished value here, and everything we do, we seek to do in partnership across the community. That starts with strong communication with our fellow economic development organizations: the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Durham Black Chamber of Commerce, and Downtown Durham Inc. We also collaborate heavily with Duke University and North Carolina Central University, as well as Durham Tech, our local community college.

Beyond that, we are constantly working with our convention center, hotels, and small businesses throughout the city. One initiative we launched a few years ago — and have continued — is bringing together interesting hospitality businesses and inviting the media to meet them directly. We help those business owners, who are often a one-person shop or running a small staff, learn how to tell their story in a way that resonates.

We also host regular roundtables: one with festival and event owners, another with directors of sales for venues and hotels, and another with marketing leaders from Durham’s major visitor attractions. In everything we do, we think carefully about who this matters to, who our partners should be, and we reach out to bring them into the process.

What are the biggest challenges facing Durham’s hospitality industry?

One challenge is the longer-term question of growth management. We’re looking at the possibility of going from 330,000 people today to 500,000 over the next 20 years. You can’t achieve that kind of growth and maintain — or improve — the quality of life for people who live here without a clear vision and a plan to get there.

Two years ago, we went through a process of developing a 20-year vision for Durham, and now we’re in the process of putting that into action. The hospitality workforce is another real challenge. It’s not as strong as it was before the pandemic, and businesses have largely addressed that by integrating technology, which can be effective but is sometimes a little less personal. Having a strong workforce that can create a genuinely welcoming environment matters enormously.

Then there’s the question of downtown vibrancy. Hybrid work policies mean there aren’t as many people downtown on any given day, and the density that makes a downtown feel alive is harder to achieve right now. We think a great deal about how to build and sustain that energy.

What are Discover Durham’s top priorities for the next three to five years?

In 2024, Discover Durham launched a nonprofit called Durham Next. Its role is to implement the Destination Master Plan we published two years ago, which was built on input from thousands of community members. The plan provides 60 different recommended initiatives to meet the community development needs, and it defines a 20-year vision to guide their implementation.

All of this is about using our collective resources, in partnership with everyone else in the community, to keep Durham vibrant, interesting, and full of opportunity. To advance this work, we have a number of projects underway. One of the most immediate is a new program we’re about to launch that will add to the city’s investment in local festivals and events, providing support services to festival producers to help with marketing, operations and logistics, and giving them the resources to scale their events and grow their impact.

We’re also working on several venue-related projects. Durham County Memorial Stadium and the Durham Athletic Park are both decades old, but they still have real life and personality in them. They need investment and a plan for how they can be better utilized, and we’re working in partnership with Durham County and the city of Durham, respectively, to support the reimagining of these facilities as both modern athletic venues and community gathering spaces.

We’re also launching a matching grants program to provide community investments to local businesses and organizations that have ideas they’d like to bring to life — events and experiences that attract visitors and are great for residents, too.

This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the other nonprofit organization Discover Durham operates, the Durham Sports Commission, whose mission is to recruit and support sporting events at all levels to raise Durham’s profile as a national championship city. The Garmin Marathon, which is a Boston Marathon qualifying event, is coming in May and will bring several thousand runners to the city. The Durham Sports Commission and local partners also worked with Athletes Unlimited Softball League to recruit one of only six professional softball teams they’ve launched across the country to make Durham their home base for their season starting in June.

These efforts highlight the collaborative and innovative approaches our sports commission is taking to put Durham at the forefront of sports tourism.

Want more? Read the Invest: Raleigh-Durham report.