 Sunset Beach, NC—Sea Trail Golf Resort & Convention Center, a 2,000-acre golf resort and meeting venue was the site of this year’s North Carolina Governor’s Conference on Tourism, held in March. More than 500 travel and tourism industry members attended the conference, where Governor Mike Easley noted the upbeat North Carolina tourism market, announcing that visitors to North Carolina spent more than $15 billion in 2006, an increase of 8.3 percent from 2005 and the largest single-year increase in tourism dollars since 1990.
The annual North Carolina Governor’s Conference on Tourism is the state’s premier travel industry event bringing together leaders from the state’s convention centers, conference centers, hotels, resorts, attractions, destination marketing organizations, and restaurants to find out the latest trends and issues facing the travel industry.
Easley also announced that North Carolina ranks 6th in the nation for travel destinations. "Clearly, tourism is a key industry that provides good jobs and a bright future for North Carolinians and their families," said Easley. "Tourism plays a vital role in the economic well being of our state. We will continue our aggressive efforts to make sure we remain one of the nation’s top travel destinations."
 The economic impact figures are the preliminary results of an annual study of the travel industry in North Carolina conducted by the Travel Industry Association of America. The study uses tax revenue data to determine the overall economic impact of travel from both domestic and international sources. Highlights of the study include: More than 45 million people visited North Carolina in 2006 and paid more than $1.3 billion in state and local taxes; The travel and tourism industry employs more than 187,000 North Carolinians; and visitor spending in North Carolina has increased more than 50 percent in the past 10 years and as a result visitor spending has increased 42 percent.
With meetings and conventions being a crucial component of hospitality industry growth in the Tar Heel State, Sea Trail was the perfect setting for the N.C. Governors upbeat tourism report and forecast. "We were honored to have Sea Trail chosen for a second time as the site for the Governor’s Conference," said Dana Connelly, president of Sea Trail Golf Resort & Convention Center. "Sea Trail is the premier destination resort on the North Carolina coast, so it was the perfect venue for the conference."
 Sea Trail offers the largest convention center on the North Carolina coast and is known for its three "golf courses of distinction." A popular location for meetings and conventions, Sea Trail has more than 62,000 square feet of meeting and function space.
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