View From Afar S2, E9: IPW 2026 | Discover South Carolina’s Duane Parrish on Finding the Undiscovered South Carolina

Welcome to a special IPW 2026 series of View From Afar. In this episode, recorded live from the conference floor, Discover South Carolina director Duane Parrish sits down with Afar deputy editor Michelle Baran to talk about a state that’s having a record-breaking year on the whole.

Duane has led South Carolina’s tourism efforts for 15 years, a period in which tourism has become one of the largest industries in the state. In 2024, it contributed more than 30 billion dollars to the economy and generated 3.2 billion in state and local tax revenues.

But the picture isn’t even across the state, and 2025 forced Duane and his team to make some real pivots—doubling down on drive markets like Atlanta and Charlotte, leaning into the “Find the Undiscovered You” campaign, and surfacing the places most travelers don’t yet know.

Transcript

Michelle: I’m Michelle Baran, deputy editor at Afar, and welcome to View From Afar, a podcast that spotlights the people and ideas shaping the future of travel. And in this special series, I’m coming to you live from the floor of IPW, the annual travel conference organized by the U.S. Travel Association to share the best of America with the rest of the world. It’s a pivotal moment right now. The U.S. is preparing to cohost the FIFA World Cup and celebrate its 250th anniversary, even as international travel arrivals are down and global events are affecting travel across the world. But the reasons we travel haven’t changed. In fact, they’ve become more important than ever. Joy and connection. So we’re talking to industry leaders about how their destinations are pivoting in a tough world, how they’re giving travelers experiences to smile about and making visitors feel welcome.

My guest today is Duane Parrish, director of Discover South Carolina, a role he’s held for 15 years. Tourism is no small business in South Carolina in 2020, for travel and tourism contributed more than $30 billion to the state’s economy and supported 240,000 jobs, both directly and indirectly. Travel also generated $3.2 billion in state and local tax revenues, raising critical funds for infrastructure projects and other programs. I’m really looking forward to digging more into how Duane and his team have helped fuel this major economic driver for the state of South Carolina.

Hello, Duane. Welcome to View From Afar. We are so excited to have you.

Duane: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Michelle: So let’s start with some of South Carolina’s tourism successes. In 2024, tourism contributed $30 billion to the state’s economy, and $3.2 billion in state and local tax revenues were generated. So how did 2025 shake out, and how is 2026 looking so far?

Duane: Sure, we’re one of the largest industries in the state. In some ways. If you measure it, the largest 2025 was a record year. But there were parts of the state. It was not a record year. The Grand Strand, Myrtle Beach area in particular. The Canadians come down typically. And the Can-Am Days have been around since the 1960s. Canadian Americans and they’ve come down. As I always said, if you drive down Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach in March or April and see people in the ocean, those are Canadians because the. The Southerners are too. The water’s too cold, but they were probably down more than 50 percent in 2025. It’s a little better this spring so far. I don’t have all the numbers yet, but it was disconcerting to start out that way for the Grand Strand, and it really never recovered. So the whole state as a whole did well. Charleston did well again. Charleston still kept that Air Canada flight from Toronto to Charleston, which was a big help for Charleston. The upstate did well with the drive market. Greenville in particular, is an up and coming destination. And then, of course, Hilton Head and Charleston and the rest of the coast have done very well with the domestic drive market.

Michelle: So it sounds like in 2026, you’ve seen domestic help recover some of the international losses it has.

Duane: And that’s what some of what we targeted, realizing that the Canadian market would still be down as well as the the rest of the international market, but we went after some of the job market cities like Atlanta, Charlotte. We upped our advertising, if you will, in those areas. Marketing efforts to try to bring more of the 80 percent of people come into South Carolina come by way of car. That’s the way you make up some of the market for the other 20 percent when it’s not there. And so we were able to have some successes there and a lot of what we call undiscovered South Carolina areas that you don’t think of as places other than Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Hilton Head and Greenville, those places we have marketed those. And since since Covid, you know, outdoor recreation has been done very well.

Michelle: Yeah, right.

Duane: From golf to hiking or camping to what have you. And we have a lot of that in our state. So we’ve been able to benefit from that from the domestic market.

Michelle: When you do kind of a marketing pivot like this and you realize, all right, let’s try and beef up domestic. And you mentioned some of these drive markets. So how does that work? Like what kind of marketing and advertising do you do in those markets? It sounds like it worked. So I’m really curious, what does it look like? What are those actual ads look like?

Duane: Sure. It’s a lot of just exposing the state. It’s a lot of just doubling our effort, what we do in our existing campaigns, and that’s through social media, through all the social media channels, as well as through streaming, as well as through over the top TV, a little bit of everything. Okay. Out of home like billboards as well. All of that plays well in the job market, but it’s just to remind people about South Carolina. In many cases, our current campaign is Find the Undiscovered You. And it’s basically many people away from people. I know FOMO is a big thing, but there are times of day that you need to sort of get off the grid. And a lot of times vacations are that time to get off the grid. And so we sort of say, hey, we’re a great place to do that. The cover of our current visitor guide is a top of table Rock mountain, which is a 3,300-foot elevation mountain that you can climb to the top of through our table Rock State Park. And you’re up there, you can see on a clear day, see the downtown Greenville, but it is a place you can truly get away and get off the grid. And I say sort of bring your blood pressure down a few points.

Michelle: Right? Right. And I feel like everyone is really looking for that right now. They are places that are a little less discovered, a little more under the radar. Exactly. Maybe hadn’t heard about. I’d love to also talk a little bit more about the taxes piece of this, the taxes that were generated. Where does the tax revenue come from? Is it predominantly hotel taxes? And what are some of the projects that has used that revenue for?

Duane: Sure. It’s a combination of gas taxes. Obviously, visitors buy gas. When I just talked about the drive market. And then there’s also sales taxes, which are on anything that a visitor buys. We have a state sales tax of 7 percent. And then there’s the accommodation taxes you mentioned, which goes back in if it’s collected in, say, Charleston, it goes back into Charleston to spend on something tourism related that can be beautifying a median in, in a highway, for example, or it can be something specific in regard to campaign advertising for that destination, or it can be something to fix up the visitor’s visit a lot, something tourism related. But those taxes are critical for a couple of things. One, it reduces the household property tax in the area.

Michelle: Oh, wow. Okay.

Duane: It also reduces just from a state budget perspective, the overall tax rates the state imposes on income taxes. You know, $3.2 billion is, is a lot of money for our state. Our total budget is $14–15 billion. So it’s a big percentage of it.

Michelle: Yeah. We need to see if California can put in something like that to get our property taxes down.

Duane: Sure.

Michelle: You know, South Carolina, as you mentioned, it’s gorgeous. There’s so many beautiful tourism assets in the state, but you don’t necessarily have the same visibility internationally of a New York or Miami. In your 15 years as director of Discover South Carolina, have you seen tourism claim a larger piece of the economic pie for the state? It sounds like it has.

Duane: I have I’ve seen it in several ways and in several destinations. Charleston has been discovered in most. In many cases, it is at the top of the ratings for North America. And. Well, there’s a reason for that. It’s a special place. It is a phenomenal, architecturally phenomenal from a historic standpoint, beautiful beaches, places even outside of the peninsula, from the beautiful plantations to the beaches. I mentioned to just some of the drive area around it. It’s just a very special place. And I think that destination has put us not only on the domestic map, but also the international map, but then also the growth of Greenville, South Carolina. Greenville is was a former textile mill. Um, the textile sort of left in and shut down in the 1980s. And 90s for the better part, Greenville sort of reinvented itself. And it’s probably the most transformed city in the southeast in the last 25 years. It’s downtown now, has tremendous pedestrian traffic. It has gotten in the new Michelin Guide. It has gotten several restaurants that have been the Bib Gourmand or Star restaurant there.

It also has the Swamp Rabbit Trail, which. The word swamp may not connote great things, but it’s phenomenal. Trail that was created from downtown Greenville. The heart has a waterfall downtown, by the way. From there and goes all the little town called Travelers Rest, which is again a small mill town sort of rediscovered, but a phenomenal place. You can hike it, you can bike it. There are what I would call tributaries off of that main trail that take you to phenomenal places to eat shop along the way. Downtown has just been discovered there. It’s, you know, it’s close to the Blue Ridge Mountains. You’re basically at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but you’re only 3.5 hours from the coast. It’s a great place to be, a great place to live, a great place to visit. Right. So Greenville’s been discovered, but you have places along the coast, too. Well, if Charleston or Myrtle Beach or if you don’t like a lot of people, a place like Georgetown, places like Beaufort, South Carolina, that are phenomenal places along our coast, Georgetown is between Charleston and Myrtle Beach. Beaufort is between Charleston Hilton Head and what we call the Lowcountry, where the barrier islands a very different look than the other part of the coast. And so you can experience a lot of great things there in terms of the cuisine, in terms of the culture, in terms of the arts there, and just phenomenally different places to stay from, you know, short term rentals to hotels, right?

Michelle: This is like that moment, I think when people are really looking for the the next thing, you know, the undiscovered, you know, like you said, they know Charleston and that’s kind of an anchor for the state. But then you have these kind of different layers to peel back. I mean, I know our readers just can’t get enough of that sort of they want us to tell them. So it’s great you’re here to help us tell them about these lesser known places where they can escape the crowds. Over your fifteen year tenure, how have you seen destination marketing change?

Duane: Well, obviously the growth of the internet. And for starters, if I go back fifteen years, I mean a smartphone at that time was not what the smartphone is today. You can do basically everything now from this thing in your pocket, the smartphone. And then when you add in AI into it, artificial intelligence makes it even a whole nother dimension to it. But I look at what’s come from the traditional way of people drove to a destination and would read about billboards. As for a place to stay. But now it’s so easy to look up availability for a place to stay, not just at the hotel chains, but short term rentals on your phone and make that reservation a day or two ahead. The booking window has shortened. That’s one of the changes people used to book their vacation a month, two months, three months.

Now they’re looking at the weather on Wednesday night, booking for the weekend. It’s true. And so I’ve seen that change. I’ve seen just the growth in terms of how we get to people. Word of mouth is still critical and that’s through social media is the starting point. But it is the person who goes home to Atlanta for the weekend. And Sunday afternoon, he sees his neighbor and the neighbor says, Hey, where’d you go last weekend? I went to Greenville, South Carolina. Phenomenal place and starts talking about that’s a critical part of marketing more so than today, because over the years, I think the third party endorsement, if you will, has become more critical. And that’s word of mouth. That’s your neighbor, that’s your colleague at work, whoever that may be. And so it’s to try to target those people. The last thing I’ll say about that is it’s a little scary about Big Brother, but at the same time, we can target people based on their interest. And that’s really, at the end of the day, what you want, right? You only have so much time as an individual to look at so many, so much advertising. And so if it can be targeted to what your interests are, whether it’s retail or hospitality or travel and accommodations and vacations, if we can target the interest of that, that’s a critical part of us being able to reach the target market today. And then golf is the same way. If you’re traveling and want to play golf, we can target you based on your interest of what you like to play in terms of golf, because there’s mountain golf and then there’s coastal golf. So that’s how defined it becomes today instead of just the overall destination.

Michelle: Yeah. And you mentioned technology and you’ve seen all these changes from, you know, TripAdvisor, Instagram influencer marketing, now, AI trip planning, showing up everywhere. How is Discover South Carolina actually using AI right now? And what are you watching that maybe worries you a little bit?

Duane: Still getting our hands around how to like many destinations in many states, our arms around trying to how exactly AI and I think, you know, there’s three or four different platforms that are going to play out a little bit as time goes by, but it’s discovering what the visitor does. Obviously, consumer behavior will dictate at the end of the day how we do it. But it is just it’s a fascinating thing. I think us travel has a phenomenal person on board that has done a phenomenal job. I think of explaining it to a lot of the country of how AI works. And so I think it’s just it’s an education thing for the industry. Um, but it’s also an education thing for the consumer, right? Sometimes AI doesn’t always direct you to the right place. Yeah. Regardless of what you’re asking it about, it’s not always what you want. And so I still think that high tech will never replace high touch. Right. And by that, I mean, no matter what AI tells you, that verification from your neighbor who went to that destination last weekend means a lot more to you than what AI tells you, right? It’s like the doctor always tells me, don’t play doctor Google. I’ll look up things on Google to find out, but at the end of the day, I want him or her to tell me about my health issues. And it’s the same way in travel.

Michelle: No, I totally see that. I feel like there’s these two different strains, this idea of personalization and being able to find people and target their interests. That’s where the technology and AI can be very helpful. But then there’s the actual factual information. I think that’s what all of us in this industry, we just want to make sure the bots are getting it right.

Duane: Exactly. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of things in AI that were not necessarily the truth. Yeah. And but if you wouldn’t know that unless you knew what it was talking about. And so I think it’s the old Ronald Reagan line of trust, but verify. Yeah. I mean, okay, that’s great to hear about, but I need somebody to tell me that’s the.

Michelle: Real place actually.

Duane: Open. Exactly. Does it still exist?

Michelle: All these things. Exactly. You know, South Carolina has been doing some really great work to tell the broader, more complicated story about the state’s history. There’s the International African American Museum in Charleston, the growing Gullah Geechee corridor. Why do you think this work is so important at this moment in time?

Duane: I think it’s important for several reasons. One, it’s always been there. It’s just people haven’t known about it. Right? And so now we talked about undiscovered South Carolina. The Gullah Geechee card is a phenomenal thing. People may not understand what that is. It’s actually it is a culture as well as a language that is taught at the College of Charleston. It also has an influence on the food that we eat, particularly in the low country I talked about earlier. It has an influence on how things are preserved and protected along there. The barrier islands of Sea Island have look at Hilton Head today, but they’re islands like that that are completely undeveloped as well. And then islands in between the sea islands and the lower part of the state are phenomenal thing to visit and see. And the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor, of which they were along, sort of represents that in many ways, the International African American Museum in Charleston, a critical thing that opened up for us for a couple of reasons.

One, it came at a great time, I think. And number two, it also is the largest museum we’ve had opened up since I’ve been in this job and probably this century that tells a story that hasn’t always been told. And if you’re of an African American descent, it has a phenomenal ability to look up the lineage of how you came to where you are today. And then also the Civil Rights Trail, which we also are part of in the southeast, while that’s separate from African American history, so to speak, it’s still an integral part of it. And so we have some great sites along the Civil Rights Trail, as well as the International African American Museum. And then the peninsula of Charleston is becoming a really phenomenal place to visit. We have a Four Seasons hotel under construction, just a few blocks away from the African American Museum, and it is becoming a very special destination to sort of tell a story and just telling in some of those undiscovered areas of our state. How South Carolina has evolved, really from its birth in 1670, this discovery of Charles Towne Landing through today and what’s taking place.

Michelle: I think about right now in this moment with international travel sort of being softer. But I think when international travelers do come, I think this is the kind of richer storytelling that they are looking for, because these are the kinds of stories that they maybe haven’t yet heard or, you know, discovered themselves. So I think this kind of richer, more meaningful storytelling. I mean, it’s for everybody, domestic as well as international. But I do think that people, at least I know our readers, they’re always looking for that added layer. It just makes everything more interesting, more fulfilling, you know, more meaningful when they visit.

Duane: It does. We have 15 states in the southeast, as well as Washington, D.C., that are part of the U.S. twoCivil Rights trail that tell that story. And we’ve had tremendous interest from the European market prior to Covid, from the Asian market as well. It had a big interest in that. So it wasn’t created just for domestic travel. It was created for international as well. And that interest is shown through. And they tell a wonderful story that sort of new people always looking for a new experience, a new, a new discovery, if you will walk out of these places, hey, I didn’t know that. And versus some things you walk out of and you okay, I’ve been there several times. It’s a great, great visit, great place to be. But I’ve learned something new at this place. And that’s a little bit of what the Civil Rights Trail tells. But along that trail too, are great places today that impact a daily thing like farm to table. You hear that term, a lot of farm to table that goes back to the open kitchens, you know, in a lot of restaurants opened up. And now it’s not just the open kitchen. It’s where do the ingredients come from? And you see that with breweries, you want to just drink the beer, you want to see it made or where it was made, and you want to know the ingredients that went into it. It’s as much about the experience today as it is about the meal, right? Those things tie into daily life that we tell a story of, whether it be the whether it be the South Carolina Museum, the African American Museum, or the Civil Rights Trail that impact the daily life of what people do. Not just travelers, but locals as well.

Michelle: And the regional differences. I think, too, when you talk about farm to table, I think something that’s always interesting from anyone who’s not from the region is how are things made a little bit differently here than they might be in another, you know, southern state or, you know, like, I think people really love to hear it gets into the minutia of it. But I know I always, I like to hear about the different styles of barbecue sauce. Sure.

Duane: And we have those. We have, we have three different styles in South Carolina. We have we have a barbecue trail in our state of 225 curated restaurants.

Michelle: Oh, wow.

Duane: Color coded by the type of sauce they offer. Because people will argue it’s a very passionate food. People argue with you about barbecue, whether it’s mustard based, tomato based, vinegar based, but all the way up to another popular part in restaurants is going in now and seeing where the ingredients in the menu came from. Like if this corn came from such and such a farm in this part of the state, or these fish were caught off of of Shem Creek, out of outside of Charleston. Right. Whatever the case may be, that is truly in its organic form of where the food came from. Right. And that is that’s very popular now. And I see that more and more today.

Michelle: Okay. But I feel like we do need to get a breakdown of the sauces so that we all know.

Duane: Okay, I’ll give you there’s actually four. There’s, there’s four. There’s the vinegar base, which is very popular in the upper part of the state. And throughout North Carolina, there is the mustard base, which is extremely popular in the Midlands area of Columbia throughout that part of the state. And then there’s heavy tomato and light tomato, really popular along the coast and other.

Michelle: Parts that one.

Duane: Know, we actually have four different categories.

Michelle: Okay. Heavy, heavy tomato and light tomato are considered one or two.

Duane: No that’s two. So four different sauces. So there’s light tomato heavy tomato. And so they’re actually color coded like that. What I just mentioned and we have that on our website. Not all barbecue restaurants are open seven days a week. Some are only open just the weekends. But our site tells you not only the days that they’re open, but also the time of day. And it gives you the color code of what their sauces are. It is amazing. People will drive 30 minutes out of their way for the right barbecue. Yes. Particularly if it’s the sauce that they crave or they have, and people are passionate about that. It is like a bucket list for some people to go to all 225 restaurants, and we’ve had many people who have done that.

Michelle: All 225. Wow. That is a feat and spiciness level kick. They all have a little different.

Duane: They can be that you can you can have a kick in all of them. But vinegar based typically it be very peppery. Okay. Um, that typically has the most spice or the most kick to it.

Michelle: And then lastly, what are some of your favorite places to bring guests when they’re in town? So the Afar team is coming to visit. Where are you taking us?

Duane: I’m going to take you through Greenville. I’ll bring you down from the upper part of the state, at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains and take you through downtown Greenville. I’ll let you see the beautiful waterfall there along the Reedy River. Then I’m going to take you down through the Midlands and show you a couple of small places to call Aiken. Another one called Camden. Phenomenal small towns. Significant battles took place there 250 years ago, and we’re celebrating our 250th. So we can tell you a story there and then feed you a great meal that night and take you to cigar bar after that, and then bring you down through some undiscovered areas all the way down through Charleston and then below Charleston, through the Lowcountry, where I’ve talked about, which is Beaufort Hilton Head. And then lastly, finish up back up in Myrtle Beach, and you can shop to your heart’s desire in all those places, all.

Michelle: The souvenirs back.

Duane: Home. Yes.

Michelle: And obviously we’re going for barbecue.

Duane: You will eat phenomenal meals.

Michelle: And what kind of sauce are you putting on your barbecue?

Duane: I am a heavy tomato guy because that’s what my mother fed me growing up, and I still love it today.

Michelle: Well, that’s fair enough. Well, thank you so much for joining us from View from Afar. This has been great.

Duane: It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

Michelle: Thanks for joining us for this episode of View From Afar. In the show notes, you’ll find links to everything we discussed today, as well as discover South Carolina’s social media handles and website. And be sure to follow along this week to hear more interviews with industry experts. You can find more Views from Afar on and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We’re @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great interviews. Subscribing always makes that easy, and be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find it.

This has been View From Afar, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland, with assistance from Billie Cohen and me, Michelle Baran. Music composition from Epidemic Sound. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to its other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers podcast.