North Carolina High Country Host is a membership marketing organization serving six counties in the Northwestern mountains of North Carolina. HCH was formed in 1980 as a cooperative marketing organization to promote the High Country area through pooled capital in the form of memberships invested by area tourism businesses. Since then, High Country Host has won many prestigious awards and has become a model for several other host organizations throughout North Carolina and beyond.

Our primary mission is to attract visitors to the High Country through extensive marketing and then direct them to member businesses. These marketing efforts have, in the past, included ads in magazines like Southern Living, National Geographic, Woman's Day and many others.

In addition to our cooperative marketing efforts, High Country Host maintains a Visitor Information Center in Boone, a Web site (www.mountainsofnc.com), produces and distributes 160,000 copies of our full-color Mountain Vacation Planner, and provides many other services to its members and to visitors.

Each month, High Country Host averages 3,500 visitors and 1,200 phone calls that come into the Visitor Center. In addition, the web site receives an average of 40,000 unique visits per month and continues to grow.