Excerpt From: The Washington Times. Written By: Bradford Richardson & Valarie Richardson.
North Carolina may have lost out on the NCAA championships, the NBA All-Star Game and Bruce Springsteen thanks to its hotly contested transgender bathroom law, but the state’s economy didn’t miss a beat.
Economic indicators released for 2016 show that the boycott has failed to derail North Carolina as a regional and national powerhouse, despite the loss of high-profile performances and sporting events in response to House Bill 2, signed March 23 by then-Gov. Pat McCrory.
Tourism has thrived: Hotel occupancy, room rates and demand for rooms set records in 2016, according to the year-end hotel lodging report issued last week by VisitNC, part of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
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Meanwhile, North Carolina ranked fourth in the nation for attracting and expanding businesses with the arrival of 289 major projects, and seventh in projects per capita — the same as in 2015, according to Site Selection magazine, which released its 2016 rankings in the March edition.
North Carolina finished first for drawing corporate facilities in the eight-state South Atlantic region, said Site Selection, which uses figures tracked by the Conway Projects Database.
And in November, both Forbes and Site Selection magazine ranked North Carolina the No. 2 state for business climate.
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