Wednesday, 29 November 2017 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika Category/Kategorie: GeneralReading Time: 7minutes
The Grand Strand is a large stretch of beaches on the East Coast of the United States extending from Little River to Georgetown in South Carolina. It consists of more than 60 miles along an essentially uninterrupted arc of beach land, beginning around the Little River and terminating at Winyah Bay. The population of the Grand Strand is at 480,000. The term Grand Strand dates back to a November 19, 1949 The Myrtle Beach Sun column titled “From the Grandstand” and another titled “From the Grand Strand” on December 3, 1949 in The Myrtle Beach News. “Strand” itself derives from the German Strand, meaning “beach”. The area has become a major tourist attraction along the Southeastern coast, with its primary city, Myrtle Beach, attracting over ten million visitors each season. It is home to numerous restaurants and theme parks, making it popular with families and college students in the summer and snowbirds during the winter. The Grand Strand’s economy is dominated by the tourist industry, with tourism bringing in millions of dollars each year. Hotels, motels, resorts, restaurants, attractions, and retail developments exist in abundance to service visitors. There are over 100 golf courses in and around Myrtle Beach as the golfing industry represents a significant presence in the area. A manufacturing base produces plastic, rubber, cardboard, foam, and ceramic products usually in small scale.
The Grand Strand hosts a variety of special conventions, events, and musical concerts. The area’s attractions include its beaches and many golf courses, as well as a number of amusement parks, an aquarium, an IMAX theater, retail developments and over 1,900 restaurants including seafood restaurants, and a number of shopping complexes. The area also has dinner theaters, nightclubs, and many tourist shops. Myrtle Beach has an estimated 460 hotels, with many on the beachfront, and approximately 89,000 accommodation units in total. Also in the city is Myrtle Waves, one of the largest water parks on the eastern seaboard. The Myrtle Beach Boardwalk opened in 2010 and has been recognized as the nation’s #3 boardwalk by National Geographic and one of the best US boardwalks by Travel + Leisure magazine. Opened in May 2011, The Myrtle Beach Skywheel features glass gondolas that look over the Atlantic Ocean. Myrtle Beach State Park, established in 1935, has just under a mile of Grand Strand beach and is a prime location for swimming, hiking, biking, and fishing.
The Myrtle Beach Convention Center is a large facility that hosts an array of different meetings, conferences, exhibits, and special events every year. The center, which opened in 2003, also features a Sheraton hotel and resort. Myrtle Beach welcomed Hard Rock Park in 2008, which was themed after the popular Hard Rock Cafe chain. After financial issues, the park became Freestyle Music Park for the 2009 season. The park features attractions themed after different genres of music, such as the British Invasion. The park did not open for the 2010 season however, and is tied up in legal issues. Each March since 1951 during Ontario’s spring break, Myrtle Beach has hosted Canadian-American Days, also known as Can-Am Days. Tens of thousands tourists come to the area for a week’s worth of special events. Myrtle Beach is also home to Coastal Uncorked, a food and wine festival held in the late spring annually. In June, recently graduated high school seniors come to Myrtle Beach for Senior Week. With numerous professional fireworks displays along the oceanfront, Myrtle Beach is recognized among the top destinations for Fourth of July travel. Priceline.com ranked Myrtle Beach among its top 20 destinations for Fourth of July in 2010. Gambling is not legal in South Carolina. However, Myrtle Beach residents and visitors have easy access to gambling by boat, which transports passengers into international waters beyond the reach of federal and state gambling laws. The Grand Strand area has many different stores and malls, is one of the largest shopping areas in the Southeastern United States, and is the largest shopping destination in South Carolina.
Barefoot Landing opened in 1988 and currently includes 100 stores, restaurants and attractions. The center also has the Alabama Theatre, which has concerts by traditional country music singers. The center includes a golf resort.
Coastal Grand Mall opened in 2004 and is the largest indoor mall in the state. The mall, which has indoor and outdoor shopping areas, has a gross leasable area of 1,047,732 square feet (97,337.5 m²). The single-story facility hass five anchor stores (including Belk, JCPenney, and Dillard’s), a 14-screen movie theater, a food court, and roughly 170 stores.
Myrtle Beach Mall is 525,385 square feet (48,809.9 m²), and has three anchor stores: Bass Pro Shops, Belk and JCPenney. The single-story mall also has a 12-screen movie theater, a food court, and a variety of other specialty stores. It used to be known as Colonial Mall, and opened as Briarcliffe Mall.
