Special coverage
A Beaufort County zoning board voted Thursday evening to deny a request to build a high-end resort on Bay Point Island, closing a chapter on a lengthy debate over the plans.
South Carolina hotels are filling about half of their rooms. Occupancy rates have hovered at the 50 percent mark — give or take a few percentage points — since early July.
Carnival and other major cruise lines say they will test all passengers and crew for COVID-19 prior to boarding as part of their plan for resuming sailing in the Americas.
Modal is the second-ever modern hostel in South Carolina — the only other in the state is Charleston's NotSo Hostel — and the first in Greenville. It's been open since late July, and bookings aren't heavy but are steady.
Already the aquarium has decided that it will only admit turtles that were rescued in-state. In the past, the center has taken in out-of-state turtles when their home aquariums were too full.
The cancellation comes with a $2 million blow to the local economy in a year where service industry and hotel receipts are way down due to temporary closures and a drastic decrease in visitors to the Grand Strand.
Passenger levels continue to improve at Charleston International Airport, but they are still down about 66.5 percent from pre-pandemic levels.
Charleston International Airport's development of minority-centric programs to entice diversity in kiosks, stores and internships are now the collective recipient of a national award for inclusiveness.
Six years after a new road to Charleston International Airport was first proposed, the $81 million plan could potentially displace a dozen or so homes and businesses and is accepting public comment over the next 30 days.
The proposal, which calls for 50 villas along with spas, dining venues and other amenities on Bay Point Island in Beaufort County has attracted opposition for months, and a key decision on the project may be close.
When what, until recently, was known as the Charleston Tea Plantation reopened to visitors after a three-month closure this summer, it quietly returned under a new name: the Charleston Tea Garden.
A 22-acre former oil depot site near Olde North Charleston is being eyed for a large-scale, mixed-use development with a waterfront hotel, apartments, and office and restaurant space, many of the structures with multiple stories.
South Carolina will see its first nonstop, transcontinental flights to Los Angeles when JetBlue Airways begins daily service from Charleston International Airport in December.
Camping and RV sites locally are reporting a decent summer and promising fall numbers as travelers are opting for outdoor activities and more personal lodging space amid COVID-19.
Both Myrtle Beach State Park and Huntington Beach State Park have seen increases in camping revenue this spring and summer during COVID-19.
United Airlines is bringing back its daily, nonstop flights between Charleston and Denver.
The Charleston and Hilton Head areas both made Airbnb's list of the top 10 short-term rental markets that saw booking surges for the holiday weekend, no doubt boosted by rentals in beach communities.
This week the waterfront attraction launched a campaign called "Our World Without," an effort to raise $1.6 million by the end of next March. Without a significant infusion of cash, the aquarium leaders say that the "heart and soul" of the institution could be lost.
Revenue for the rest of the fiscal year, which runs through March 31, 2021, is expected to be down by $9.6 million, which is down about 42 percent to budget. All are a result of conferences, sporting events and more cancelling due to COVID-19.
“If ever there was a term travel counselor, this year defined it. We dealt with crying, tearful people who want to be here, but can’t. They don’t want to cancel, but feel that they have to. We’ve heard it all."
The Planters Inn took advantage of the months without guests to do a deep clean and make improvements that would have been impossible with guests around, like refurbishing the antique heart pine floors.
Returning guests at the Post House, a recently reopened and revamped historic inn and restaurant in Mount Pleasant's Old Village, will likely notice, if they've reserved "Room 2," that their a…
Charleston International Airport picked up more passengers in July from the depth of the coronavirus lockdown in the spring, but the numbers continue to be way off from the number of travelers before the pandemic.
Spots within the new hotel complex will be named after "Lowcountry fauna and history," Wild Dunes owner Lowe said in a release last week.
Before the pandemic, "hands-on learning" was a selling point for children's museums. Now it's one of the main reasons these institutions are having a uniquely difficult time reopening during the pandemic.
The development could have a "detrimental impact" on South Carolina's natural resources and Beaufort County taxpayers, the governor wrote in a letter Tuesday to a Lowcountry zoning board.
Grand Strand region could bank upwards of $18 million in direct spending from fall/winter sports tourism visitors if schedules stay on track. One MB official said he’d consider 80 percent of that a success.
Michael B. Moore has been with the company since early 2020, according to an announcement, and was recently appointed as its first diversity and inclusion officer.
The project received some harsh blow-back in June from some outspoken critics, who blasted the design as "corporate" and said it wasn't "suited" for downtown.
The steep drop in tourism-related taxes collected in the Charleston area has ripple effects that go well beyond hotels and restaurants. Those tax dollars, now almost nonexistent thanks to COVID-19, fund much-needed grants for museums and arts groups and municipal projects for cities and towns.
The $4 billion decline is almost equivalent to cutting that same period of revenue from last year in half, and it factors out to about one-sixth of the sector's $24 billion economic impact.
The resort is starting a "phased reopening" and says it's using more intensive cleaning and employee health screening procedures.
One of Charleston's most popular attractions laid off staff members and made job reductions this summer as the pandemic continues to drive down visitation and eat away at revenue.
It's a win-win situation: Students get hands-on experience working on the museum's historic vessels, and Patriots Point will get access to their skills, tools and work at no cost.
Local economists are labeling the job market “bleak” as local prospective employees wobble through the final month of a weak Grand Strand summer. Meanwhile, local business owners fight to hold onto their businesses, trying to figure out the best ways to stay open during what may be a reduced-capacity off season in the hopes of making it to spring 2021.
Renderings for a 175-room, 11-story hotel just off the Ashley River Bridge and across from the growing WestEdge development will come before the Board of Architectural Review again this week.
The lost summer is the first on record for Carowinds, which has been luring fun- and thrill-seeking visitors to its neck of the I-77 corridor for nearly half a century.
One of the Charleston area's top tourist attractions has cut its budget nearly in half to help it weather the loss of revenue and drop in visitation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
A top South Carolina visitor attraction idled by the coronavirus pandemic is writing off the rest of 2020.
Hotel occupancy rates — a closely watched weekly indicator of how many tourists are coming to South Carolina — suggest that hesitations about vacationing in the Palmetto State may already be w…
Cruise ship passengers who find their voyages canceled because of COVID-19 or other reasons might have an easier time getting refunds under a proposal by the Federal Maritime Commission.
Jay Lucas, speaker of the S.C. House of Representatives, has filed a "friend of the court" brief in Charleston's cruise ship battle, claiming South Carolina's top court gave terminal opponents a chance to fight the project that they didn't deserve.
This week, a Beaufort County zoning board will review the plans to determine whether the project will receive its special-use permit for ecotourism — a key decision in determining if the development will become a reality.
This month, three long-running businesses that aren't owned by people of Gullah-Geechee descent but were using the culture in their branding — a grits mill, a packaged foods company and a boat tour operator — said they would change their brand names.
Charleston International Airport more than doubled its number of passengers in June over May as travelers began to return after the depth of the coronavirus lockdown in April when air travel plunged 96 percent. While improving, the numbers are about 76 percent lower than in June 2019. At the mid-year point, they are off 58 percent from last year during the first six months.
A King Street building that used to house a women's clothing store could be turned into a small hotel and retail development if a request up for review this week gets city approval.
South Carolina's hotels have seen two weeks of declining occupancy rates after a couple months of slow and steady growth, likely signaling that the spread of COVID-19 in the state is making potential travelers more wary.