Who We Are & What We Do
From the President's Desk
I hope you are doing fantastic and your 2025 is off to a great start.
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Allow me to begin this letter by thanking our awesome HTA members for their remarkable participation in all HTA initiatives and events and for helping us sell out our 2025 Annual Gala Event months in advance. We are proudly looking forward to hosting over 1600 attendees at our 31st Annual Gala Event on April 10, 2025, and realize that the active participation of our members is absolutely the best testament for the value of our membership and return on their investment.
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I am also so grateful to our members for their role in making 2024 the best year ever since the Greater Charlotte Hospitality & Tourism Alliance (HTA) was established in 1994 as a private membership organization with the mission of helping members with “growing their business and addressing their business challenges.”
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Being laser focused on maintaining, enhancing, and retaining hospitality revenue generating assets while doing our part to address industry and community wide challenges, some of our top initiatives in 2024 included the following:
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We worked relentlessly with Charlotte City Council to have them vote in favor of a plan that will add 19 new departure paths (from 8 departure paths to 27) that will drastically improve efficiency and customer service, reduce flight delays and cancelations at CLT.
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Working with the City of Charlotte to coordinate hospitality investments to drastically upgrade the Spectrum Center and keep the Charlotte Hornets here until at least 2045. The ongoing renovation of the Spectrum Center was a catalyst for ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) to award our city the ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament for 2025, 2026, and 2028 and the ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament in 2027. Upgrades also helped us secure a major annual tennis invitational tournament and will position us for more major concerts and another NBA All-Star Event.
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We did our major part of working with state legislators to extend an existing hospitality tax, which enabled our city and our industry to invest $650 Million (from project growth in our revenues/taxes) for drastic upgrades of Bank of America Stadium and retaining our NFL Carolina Panthers, our MLS Charlotte FC, our mega college football games, major concerts, and major international soccer games for at least the next 2 decades.
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We did our part to help organizers of the awesome Lovin Life Music Festival (LLMF) make the event a reality and have them rebook that event for 2025.
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We did our part in working with state legislators to pass new laws to more effectively deal with repeat offenders (who were committing most crimes) and also recently passed a state law to prevent juveniles from committing crimes and not face consequences. Juveniles (16-17 years old) will now be prosecuted as adults for major crimes.
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We relentlessly worked with Charlotte City Council to have them pass an ordinance to make disorderly conduct (aggressive homelessness, panhandling, public urination, public defecation, masturbation, sex in public) illegal in Charlotte.
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We did our part working with our Charlotte City Council and Charlotte area’s transit commission to have them vote in favor of adding two lanes (one going south, one going north) to I-77 from downtown to South Carolina state line to relieve the major congestion on that major interstate.
Building on extraordinary successes of 2024, having the best ever hospitality revenues generated in 2024 (see attached actual revenues) and having done our part to solidify the foundation of our hospitality revenue generating assets, HTA’s leadership is totally committed to make things even better for our region’s hospitality business, our vibrant economy and our community as a whole. See attached for a partial list of HTA’s 2025 priorities.
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Now, let me cover the following items:
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Solidifying Charlotte’s Aviation Status
PSA Airlines, which is a part of American Airlines group, announced yesterday the relocation of their headquarters to Charlotte from Dayton, Ohio. PSA’s executive leadership team and their 400 team members will be based at their new Charlotte headquarters.
Also in 2024, opened their ($241M) and added .
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NASCAR Hall of Fame 2025 Induction Ceremonies
On Friday, February 7th, , and will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at one of NASCAR’s biggest events of the year at .
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Charlotte Checkers Hockey Team are in the midst of their season and will have home games through April 19th at Bojangles’ Coliseum. (www.charlottecheckers.com)
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Sporting Events at Charlotte Convention Center
More than 2700 fencers (including some members of the 2024 Olympic Team) will compete at the center from February 14-17, 2025.
Charlotte Convention Center will also be hosting the from June 13-15, 2025 (www.usatkd.org)
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Charlotte Knight’s Baseball Team will open their 2025 season on Friday, March 28th at Truist Field in the Center City (www.milb.com/charlotte-knights/schedule)
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Our awesome Charlotte Hornets NBA arena, Spectrum Center, is preparing for the 2025 ACC Basketball Tournament from March 11-15, 2025.
Spectrum Center, which went through a major 1st phase renovation/upgrade last year will start on the 2nd phase ($74.6M) of renovations after the end of the current NBA season. The public funding part of the nearly $600M upgrades/expansion of the arena all came from our Charlotte existing hospitality taxes, supporting our mission of utilizing hospitality taxes to and hospitality assets which generate significant revenues and economic impacts for hospitality business and our overall economy.
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Bank of America Stadium, home of our NFL Carolina Panthers and our MLS Charlotte FC, will be the site for the Billy Joel and Sting concert on May 10, 2025. The stadium, which is gearing up for major upgrades to host more mega events, is also getting ready for 2025 MLS season as our Charlotte FC will have their 2025 home opener on March 1st against Atlanta United.
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Are you ready for the return of Lovin’ Life Music Fest?
This awesome music festival, which attracted nearly 90,000 attendees last year, includes (, , +++) will be back in Charlotte from . Reserve your tickets today. (www.lovinlifemusicfest.com)
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Get ready for the prestigious 2025 PGA Championship which will be held at the beautiful Quail Hollow Club from May 15-18, 2025.
As a private membership organization which is laser focused on “helping members with growing their business and addressing their business challenges,” I am grateful to our wonderful members for allowing us the pleasure of serving their business and extremely thankful for their amazing involvement in all of our General Meetings (over 400 attendees), HTA Corporate Networking Events (over 200 attendees), our four annual Golf Tournaments (sold out for years), and our record breaking Annual Gala events with attendance of over 1600. Thank you.

Mission
The Greater Charlotte Hospitality & Tourism Alliance (HTA) has been the premier voice of our region's hospitality & tourism industry since it was established by the leaders of the industry in 1994. Over the years the HTA's leadership has proudly and relentlessly been vital in efforts that have made our region a premier destination. We are proud to have been a major part of developing the Charlotte Convention Center, Spectrum Center, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, $200 million Arts & Cultural Complex, Carolinas Aviation Museum, Charlotte Knights Baseball Stadium and many initiatives which have made the Charlotte region a great travel, event and convention destination.
Our Impact
As a full-time membership association representing a variety of different businesses in the Greater Charlotte area, we have proudly become known as a major economic development driver for our region and one of the most effective business organization in the Carolinas. Our mission and specific priorities are simply focused on leading initiatives that are essential in maximizing the bottom lines of all HTA members' businesses. If you are not a member of our very pro-active and members' bottom line oriented association, we would love to have the pleasure of working with you in maximizing your business opportunities.