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Poll Finds Many North Carolinians Still Wary Of Summer Travel

A High Point University poll shows that not all North Carolinians are ready to get back to pre-pandemic vacationing. In this photo, a hydrologic technician installs a storm tide sensor on the Carolina Beach Fishing Pier in Carolina Beach, N.C. (USGS via AP)

The kickoff to the summer travel season is less than two months away. But a new High Point University poll shows many North Carolinians aren't yet ready to get back to pre-pandemic vacationing.

The poll asked residents about whether the availability of COVID-19 vaccines would make them more likely to travel this summer. A third of respondents said it would, but about the same number said they'd venture out at the same level as last year. 

Another 28 percent said they planned to travel less.

More of those polled said they would travel outside of the state than visit somewhere in North Carolina, while fewer than 10 percent said they planned to travel internationally.  

Last year, the state lost nearly $7 billion in travel spending between March and August, according to estimates from the development organization Visit North Carolina. 

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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