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Nearly $1.14 billion. That’s how much domestic and international visitors spent in New Hanover County in 2024, setting a new local record. And the momentum hasn’t slowed down. Tourism officials reported that nearly 5 million visitors came to New Hanover County in 2025, and heading into the 2026 summer season, room occupancy tax collections were running about 4% ahead of the previous fiscal year.

For Wilmington and the greater Cape Fear region, those numbers matter. They mean more people walking past storefronts, checking into hotels, attending events, visiting campuses, exploring shopping centers, and making quick decisions about where to spend their time and money.

So, it’s worth asking: is your business signage ready for them?

Tourism season is a good time to look at your space through fresh eyes. Not as the owner, developer, manager, or team member who already knows where everything is. But as someone who’s never been there before.

Can they tell what you do? Can they find the entrance? Do they know where to go once they’re inside? Does your storefront signage give them a reason to step in, or does it leave them guessing?

That’s where signage starts to do more than mark a building. It becomes part of how people understand, experience, and remember your business.

Business Signage Is Part of the Sales Path

For retail businesses, restaurants, service providers, and shopping centers, signage and marketing work together.

A visitor may not know your business by name. They may not know what you sell, what you offer, or whether you’re worth walking into. Your exterior business sign, window graphics and decals, banners, and displays often answer those questions before anyone speaks to them.

A FedEx Office survey found that 76% of American consumers had entered a store they’d never visited before based on its signs, and 68% had purchased a product or service because a sign caught their eye. That doesn’t mean your signage needs to be loud or overdone. It just needs to be clear.

• What is this place?
• What do they offer?
• Is it open?
• Is it worth going in?

Those are simple questions, but visitors are asking them quickly. A strong storefront sign, updated window graphics, seasonal decals, or well-placed promotional signage can help answer them before someone keeps walking.

Guest Experience Starts Outside

For hotels, venues, campuses, and larger properties, wayfinding signage also plays a role in guest experience.

Before someone reaches the front desk, host stand, leasing office, or event space, they’ve already interacted with the property. They’ve looked for the entrance. They’ve figured out where to park. They’ve followed signs, scanned for directions, and made a quick judgment about how organized the space feels. If that experience is confusing, it can color the rest of the visit.

That matters in a tourism market. Visitors are not just deciding whether to come in today. They’re deciding whether to come back next year, recommend the place to a friend, or leave a positive Google review.

Clear wayfinding signage can’t fix every part of a guest experience, but it can remove a lot of unnecessary friction.

Walk Your Space Like You’ve Never Been There

One of the easiest ways to find signage gaps is to walk your space like a visitor.

Start from the road. Pull into the property. Park where a guest would park. Walk toward the entrance. Move through the space without relying on what you already know.

Then ask:

• Can someone see us from the road or sidewalk?
• Is it clear where to enter?
• Does the storefront explain what we offer?
• Are our hours, services, products, or seasonal messages visible?
• Do people know where to go once they’re inside?
• Are staff members answering the same directional questions every day?
• Does the signage feel current, clean, and connected to the brand?

This kind of walk-through usually reveals small but important issues. Maybe the main sign is hard to see from the road. Maybe the window graphics are outdated. Maybe the entrance is clear during the day but not at night. Maybe the business has grown, but the signage hasn’t caught up. Those are fixable problems.

Make It Easy for Visitors to Choose You

Tourism brings opportunity, but visitors move quickly. They’re choosing where to eat, shop, stay, explore, book, browse, and spend money, often in places they’ve never been before.

Your signage can help make that decision easier.

It can pull someone in from the sidewalk. It can tell them what you offer. It can guide them through the property. It can support the guest experience. It can make your business feel more polished, more approachable, and easier to remember.

At Port City Signs & Graphics, we help businesses, developers, hotels, venues, campuses, and retail centers think through signage from the visitor’s point of view. That includes exterior signs, window decals, wayfinding systems, ADA signage, branded graphics, temporary event signs, and installation details that make everything work in the real world.

Need help seeing your space the way a first-time visitor does? Contact us today to plan signage that welcomes, guides, and encourages your customers to take the next step.