Mountains and muses: Tourism development in Asheville, North Carolina

• Synthesize Tourism Area Life Cycle and urban tourism research approaches.
• Focus on spaces and practices that can serve residents and visitors.
• Investigate culture and branding as means of forging area’s identity.
• Assert importance of governance structures and practices to resolve tourism-related conflicts.

Asheville, a mid-sized city in the Western North Carolina mountains, has functioned as a tourism center for well over a century, marketing its scenery and climate first to health tourists and then to recreational visitors. In recent decades, city and tourism industry leaders have used marketing and product development strategies, with a particular focus on cultural attractions, to increase overnight visits. They have done so with an eye to maintaining a high quality of life for full-time residents and preserving indigenous natural and cultural resources. Public-private partnerships to promote tourism while avoiding the loss of local identity associated with late stages of the “tourism area life cycle” are explored.