Asheville hotel building ban should be up to a year, committee says (30 August 2019)
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But local musician and political activist Andrew Fletcher said it might be impossible to predict future hotel construction, since “the hotel market is not a free market.”
That’s because the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, which controls the $25 million in hotel and lodging taxes, uses all the money to draw more tourists to the area through marketing and other means.
Fletcher said the discussion should be a larger one about the tourism industry.
“What’s its utility to us, rather than the other way around.”