Coastal 



Tourism: 

 A 



Balancing 

 Act 



By Jeannie Faris 



When W.A. Best was a boy, 

 Atlantic Beach was little more than an 

 isolated stretch of sand traveled at low 

 tide by folks going from Morehead 

 City to Salter Path. 



Those days, however, are long 

 behind him. 



Today, the town of Atlantic Beach 

 is a thick clutch of souvenir shops, airy 

 beach homes, nightclubs, rides and 

 restaurants settled at the base of the 

 arching bridge to Morehead City. 



To the east, the town is hemmed in 

 by Fort Macon State Park. To the west, 

 a live oak-lined corridor of hotels and 

 condominiums, diners and bait shops 

 stretches into Pine Knoll Shores. 



The origins of Atlantic Beach were 

 simple by today's standards. Though 

 visitors had journeyed by boat to its 

 pavilions since the 1 880s, progress 

 arrived with a bridge from the main- 

 land in 1928 and a campaign to draw 

 visitors with a casino and bathhouses. 



This bustling seaside town, 

 nourished on tourism, today hosts up 

 to 30,000 people on a summer holiday 

 weekend. 



Carteret County — and its ribbon 

 of barrier island beaches — has come 

 of age as a vacation destination. It's 

 the midpoint on a coastline 320 miles 

 long and ripe for tourism harvest, from 

 the Outer Banks north of Atlantic 

 Beach to the southern beaches below. 



Some say the growth and changes 

 have been for the better. Tourism is the 

 backbone of coastal economies. Where 

 there had been few accommodations 

 and no jobs, now there are both. 



In Dare County alone, Outer Banks 

 tourism drives the retail sales and 

 services, which top $500 million 

 annually. 



"Tourism is going to be here," says 

 Louise Dollard, a Dare County 

 commissioner from Southern Shores. 

 "That's the only way this place makes 

 money. So it's obviously going to 

 continue." 



Others, like Best, say the changes 

 have been for the worse. 



True, tourism has buoyed commu- 

 nities that otherwise would have relied 

 on commercial fishing and boatbuilding 

 for sustenance, says Todd Miller, 

 executive director of the N.C. Coastal 

 Federation. 



But tourism is a double-edged 

 sword, he says. There are real, and 

 sometimes irreversible, costs to the 

 environment. 



Natural resources can be trampled 

 underfoot in the rush for the tourism 

 dollar. And coastal towns are occasion- 

 ally pressed to provide water, sewer, 

 police, lifeguards and garbage collec- 

 tion to the crowds who spill over their 

 borders for summertime rest and 

 recreation. 



Some say the growth 

 and changes have been 



for the better. 

 Tourism is the backbone 

 of coastal economies. 

 Where there had been 

 few accommodations 



and no jobs, 

 now there are both. 



"Too much. Too much," says Best, 

 a Morehead City resident. "This 

 island's going to sink." 



Fancy floor plans and contemporary 

 construction are replacing sand dunes 

 and scrubby vegetation. And seasonal 

 traffic overruns small towns like high 

 waters in a flood, receding in the drier 

 winter months. 



But towns like Atlantic Beach and 

 Pine Knoll Shores remain anchored to 

 their past — their slower days and 

 slower pace — by places and memories. 



The faded yellow Iron Steamer pier 

 and hotel advertises free fishing for 

 families registered to a room. The old 

 building hunkers down between the 



2 JULY/AUGUST 1992 



