Horry-Georgetown Technical College is doubling the size of its culinary arts program in the next three years to serve the needs of hundreds of restaurants on South Carolina's Grand Strand.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reports ( http://bit.ly/v9qP35) the number of culinary students will double to 300.The college is building a new two-story building on its Grand Strand campus to house classrooms, kit...

Diane Finklea and Bob Lee’s nuptials today are almost five decades in the making.Finklea, 61, and Lee, 63, were barely in high school when they first dated in Latta. They broke up a year later, but reconnected last year through Facebook.Today, with the help of a USC hospitality class, the couple will wed in style.The wedding is at 6 p.m. at T. Ashton Phillips Center at the South Carolina Fa...

The Cayce Tennis and Fitness Center, which opened just weeks ago, already is paying off in terms of tourism. The USTA announced Wednesday that it has awarded its 2012 and 2013 Junior Team Tennis National Championships to the Lexington County tennis complexes. That means 64 teams of teen players (and their families) from throughout the country will be spending long weekends in the area the next two...

Rural economic development and developing historical attractions are being discussed this week in Clemson during a meeting sponsored by the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor.The three-day meeting that opens Monday includes sessions on everything from creating livable communities to developing environmental tourism and the historical resources of the area. There will also be a session on gr...

Columbia City Council Tuesday passed new regulations for taxi drivers as the city tries to make them ambassadors for the municipality.The ordinance requires cab drivers to be trained on hospitality and tourism when they renew their annual licenses. It also bars drivers from using cell phones while driving and prohibits smoking in the cars. The new regulations did not result in an increase in fares...

Charleston has been honored as the top American travel destination by the readers of Conde Nast Traveler Magazine.Charleston was No. 2 on the list last year.The award was presented Monday evening at the magazine's Reader's Choice Awards in New York with Charleston native and comedian Stephen Colbert awarding the honor to local tourism officials.Colbert said Charleston is the most beautiful city he...

Duane Parrish heads South Carolina’s largest industry — tourism.After being tapped by Gov. Nikki Haley and confirmed by the state Senate in February, the Mount Pleasant resident oversees the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.A 35-year veteran of the tourism industry — he said he started working for a hotel at 15 — Parrish, 51, is the former chairman of the S.C. H...

South Carolina’s unemployment rate hit a new high in August, jumping to 11.1 from 10.9 percent in July.The leisure and hospitality industry was hardest hit, losing 3,400 jobs since July as the traditional summer tourism season came to an end. Trade, transportation and utilities shed 1,500 jobs, and the hard-hit construction sector lost 200 jobs.But the government, which has shed the most jo...

Labor Day weekend tourism along South Carolina's Grand Strand is expected to bounce back strongly after last weekend's brush with Hurricane Irene.Researchers at Coastal Carolina University estimate that occupancy in Horry and Georgetown counties will be over 80 percent Friday night. On Saturday and Sunday nights, occupancy is projected to be closer to 90 percent.The forecast calls for fair weather...

With Hurricane Irene past and the Labor Day weekend looming, tourism officials in Myrtle Beach have extended their summer ad campaign in hopes of offsetting any negative publicity from the storm.South Carolina's beaches emerged from their brush with Irene relatively unscathed last weekend but officials worry that may not be clear to potential visitors after news about the storm.Brad Dean of the My...

An evacuation of the S.C. coastline probably will not be necessary because Hurricane Irene is expected to strike North Carolina, not the Palmetto State, Gov. Nikki Haley said during a Wednesday press conference.“This is something the (S.C.) counties can handle,” Haley said, adding the state National Guard is no longer on alert.Haley said she spoke with North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue Wedn...

Time Warner Cable on Monday opened a new customer service center inside its Midlands’ campus at 3347 Platt Springs Road. The full-service center provides customer service for billing, equipment and service-related matters. It also showcases all of the company’s services, such as digital cable, high-speed Internet, home phone and wireless products. The new center replaces the West Columbi...

New numbers show that South Carolina's $14 billion tourism industry is continuing to bounce back from the Great Recession.Numbers released by the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism this week show that airplane travel to the state was up 14 percent between January and May, compared with last year.Revenue per available hotel rooms was up almost 8 percent between January and June.Accom...

As the summer season winds down, tourism remains strong along South Carolina's Grand Strand, the heart of the state's $14 billion tourism industry.Researchers at the Brittain Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University say occupancy at the lodgings it surveys along the northern South Carolina coast are expected to run about 95 percent this weekend.It will be one of the last big weeken...

The company that holds the mortgage on an abandoned theme park in Myrtle Beach has purchased it out of foreclosure.FPI US LLC this week made a credit bid of $7 million for the old Freestyle Music Park, which has been closed for two years.An attorney for the company, David Slough, says the company hopes to reopen the park next year. Slough says the company hopes to find a partner to manage and oper...

South Carolina officials are scheduled to announce the state's latest unemployment figures.The state Department of Employment and Workforce on Friday is expected to release South Carolina's jobless numbers for June.South Carolina's jobless numbers have consistently outpaced the national rate, which was 9.2 percent in June.In May, the state reversed a four-month downward trend, with unemployment ri...

The S.C. House has overturned the first of Gov. Nikki Haley's budget vetoes, restoring a $107 million fund that will pay for economic development, technical college job-training programs, tourism advertising and college campus maintenance.The vote is the first of 35 scheduled on Haley's budget vetoes, totaling $213 million, that the new Republican governor issued Tuesday.Other vetoes to be taken u...

The number of unemployed people in South Carolina rose in May as college and high school graduates flooded the job market, the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce reported Friday morning.South Carolina unemployment for May was 10 percent, up from 9.8 percent in April. The state's businesses added jobs but those new employment opportunities could not keep pace with the number of people ente...

South Carolina is planning to again welcome visitors every day of the week.The Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism announced Wednesday that all nine of its highway welcome centers will be open seven days per week as of July 1.Most of the rest stops had been closed two days a week because of budget problems.Agency chief Duane Parrish says the centers are important to help grow the state's t...

A local group is pushing efforts to make the center of South Carolina's $18 billion tourism industry a smoke-free area.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reports that the nonprofit Smoke Free Horry cites survey figures showing that an overwhelming majority of the county's residents believe secondhand smoke causes health problems. Organization spokesman George DuRant wants visitors to see a progressive c...

North Myrtle Beach city council has given initial approval to an agreement to expand the city by about 1,800 acres west of the intracoastal waterway.The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported the council voted Monday to approve an agreement with several landowning firms that would zone more than 1,400 of the acres for single-family homes, multi-family homes and commercial units. The city would also buy...

More travelers are expected to hit the road – and the skies – this Memorial Day weekend.That increased travel, vital to the economy of a state with a huge tourism sector, comes as gas prices in South Carolina have fallen to the cheapest in the nation and more people are finding jobs, according to AAA Carolinas.“People are feeling more confident” about spending as the state’...

A retired newspaper publisher has been elected the first new mayor in Summerville in 45 years.Bill Collins won a three-way race Tuesday to replace longtime mayor Berlin Myers who retired. Collins is the retired publisher of The Journal Scene in Summerville.Myers is an icon in the town about 20 miles northwest of Charleston and there is a statue of him outside Town Hall.Collins says his goals as ma...

There are battlefields, and then there's Belle Boyd, teenage temptress and Confederate spy.The Appalachian Regional Commission is betting Boyd is the sexier Civil War story and that tourists will want to visit the Martinsburg, W.Va., home of the notorious "siren of the South" who used her feminine charms to spy on Union soldiers for the Confederacy.The Belle Boyd House in the Eastern Panhandle is ...

A House panel has approved plans to merge the state Museum Commission and the Arts Commission into the state's parks agency.House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Cooper said Tuesday the move will save about $500,000. The measure now moves to the House floor for debate.The reduced spending would come from a combination of savings on rent and utilities as well as cutting management jobs.The $5...

Wine Walk, Lexington’s newest festival, wound up a winner, as Town Council settled on an allotment of nearly $55,000 in hotel bed tax revenue for local events.The May gathering will receive $10,000 in aid, double what an advisory panel recommended, after council members revised the initial plan Monday.Twelve events will get subsidies ranging from $1,000 each for a pair of tennis tournaments...

Tourism organizations take note. The City of Columbia is still accepting applications for its hospitality and accommodations tax grants for the 2011-2012 fiscal year but the deadline for applications is coming up fast.The deadline for the hospitality grant is noon Friday while applications for the accommodations grant is noon March 25.The grants are available to tourism-related agencies with non-p...

A popular live tribute show where performers portray famous singers is opening in a new venue in Myrtle Beach.The first shows for Legends in Concert are Friday at a theater at Broadway at the Beach. The 600-seat theater has recently undergone a $1 million renovation.The tribute show has moved from its old location in Surfside Beach, where performances were held for 15 years.Legends in Concert has ...

Southwest Airlines touches down in South Carolina this weekend, with its flights to Charleston and Greenville-Spartanburg expected to attract hundreds of thousands more visitors to the state and save travelers tens of millions on airfare.Tourism officials on both sides of South Carolina say the new connections, and the expected drop in competitors' fares that generally follow Southwest's arrival, ...

Charleston business leaders are getting an update on the impact of the cruise business in the city.The Charleston Metro Chamber's Charleston Community Connect hears Wednesday from the State Ports Authority's director of business development, Peter Lehman.Lehman is releasing the projected economic impact a new cruise terminal on the Charleston waterfront will have on the region.He's also updating l...