Explore Asheville honors six workers shaping Buncombe County tourism economy

Explore Asheville put six front-line workers in the spotlight Monday at the Heritage Ballroom in The Omni Grove Park Inn, using National Travel & Tourism Week to show how Buncombe County’s visitor economy depends on jobs that are often unseen. “We know that these travel and hospitality workers may be unseen in their roles, and this is really their time to shine,” Ashley Greenstein said.

The 2026 Heroes of Hospitality honorees reflected how broad that labor pool has become. Al Larson, a front desk agent at the Grand Bohemian Lodge Asheville, and Benita Wynn, who works event staff at Harrah’s Cherokee Center, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium and the ExploreAsheville.com Arena, represented the hotel and venue side of the business. David King, manager of guest services and advertising at Asheville Regional Airport, stood for the airport workers who greet visitors first, and Explore Asheville said he has grown the airport’s Guest Services program. Asheville Regional Airport served 2,240,877 passengers in 2025, its second-busiest year on record.

The other honorees pointed to the small businesses and civic spaces that make Asheville feel like Asheville. Eva Rodriguez-Cué, owner and barista at Haywood Famous, Willie Meadows, a bartender at Vinnie’s Neighborhood Italian, and Marie-Louise Ramsey, volunteer manager at the Asheville Visitor Center, were all recognized for the kind of daily service that shapes a visitor’s impression of the city. Each honoree received a custom glass bowl from Small Batch Glassworks in the River Arts District and a $500 gift card, while the more than 40 nominees received Asheville-made products.

The awards landed in a year when the scale of tourism’s local footprint is impossible to ignore. Explore Asheville says the travel and hospitality industry employed 18,377 people in Buncombe County in 2024 and generated $609 million in payroll, along with $116.5 million in state tax revenue and about $103 million in local taxes. The broader workforce effort extends beyond the luncheon: Explore Asheville’s hospitality scholarship program offers up to $2,500 annually for four years at North Carolina post-secondary institutions, with money that can go toward tuition, housing and books. For the 2026 cycle, applications opened Jan. 14 and closed April 1, and notifications went out April 13. Explore Asheville says one out of every seven jobs supports the visitor economy, a reminder that the county’s recovery after Hurricane Helene will depend as much on retaining workers as on attracting travelers.