State of NC Internship - I-95N Welcome Center - Pleasant Hill Summer Intern (In-Person)

Department: Commerce

Division: Welcome Centers

Job Duties: This project will expose the intern to North Carolina’s visitors, who spent $35.63 billion in the state in 2023. The intern will interact with individuals and families one-on-one to learn what brings them to North Carolina, and it will give the intern a chance to influence the visitors’ spending in the state. Tourism expenditures supported 227,224 jobs in North Carolina. State and Local tax receipts as a result visitor spending averaged $7.1 million per day in 2023. Also, the intern will assist the Manager in completing the online state material inventory of Maps, Travel Guides, Wine Guides, and Civil War Trail Maps, monthly reports such as foreign visitor count generated from electronic guest registry using iPad, motorcoach bus report generated by counting busses and passengers, vehicles/reservations count for hotel rooms booked and new brochures approved to be displayed and distributed report. This internship is an excellent opportunity for the intern to learn about the tourism industry in North Carolina by being exposed to information about the state’s various attractions and accommodations, to learn Welcome Center operations firsthand, to add anecdotal experiences to textbook knowledge regarding the tourism industry, and to actually have a direct impact on visitor spending by promoting the state. 

Major Task to be Performed: The intern will help staff the reception desk at one of the state’s Welcome Centers, located on I-95N in Northampton County just inside our border with Virginia. The I-95N Welcome Center greeted nearly 1,522,412 visitors in 2023. Since this is not a clerical position, the intern will be trained to answer visitor inquiries and assist with routine Welcome Center duties, just like one of North Carolina’s nationally certified travel counselors.  Additionally, and while the intern is exposed to the North Carolina visitors’ demographics data, he or she will be making comparisons between that data and the Welcome Center’s actual visitors’ demographics trend.

Final Product or Outcome Anticipated: The intern will become familiar with tourist destinations across the state, with a concentration on mountain attractions.  Back in the classroom, the intern will be able to draw on individual experiences with tourists to add authentic anecdotes to textbook instruction and have a frontline knowledge of the state’s growing $19.96 billion tourism industry based not only on the general demographics of visitors to the state but also to the Welcome Centers and the monthly reports that reflect overall statistics about the program. 

Academic Majors Desired: Tourism, Hospitality, Marketing, Business Administration, Political Science, other. 

2025 State of North Carolina Internship Period: Monday, May 19 – Friday, July 25, 2025

Experience working in tourism, hospitality, or the customer-service industry. General knowledge of the principles and practices of public relations. Ability to communicate general tourism information, including basic information regarding attractions, events, accommodations, recreational, historical, and geographic features of the state in oral and written form. Ability to complete work assignments, utilizing Microsoft Office products and online search engines.   

• An applicant must be a permanent North Carolina resident attending a college, university, law school, community college or technical institute in North Carolina or a North Carolina resident attending an equivalent institution out of state. 
• Applicants must carry a 2.5 or greater overall grade point average on a 4.0 scale.
• Applicant must be at least 18 years old by January 1, 2025.
• Applicants must be continuing their education in the fall following their participation in the program.
• To qualify for a law internship, applicants must have completed at least one year of law school before the beginning of the internship, unless other majors are listed.
• Students having previously held paid internships with this program are not eligible to apply.
• Applicants must be willing and able to work full-time for the entire 10-week internship. Applicants must be able to provide legal proof of identity and work authorization within three working days of employment.

Due to the volume of applications received, we are unable to provide information regarding the status of your application over the phone. To check the status of your application, please log in to your account and click "Application Status".  It is not necessary to contact the Council for Women & Youth Involvement Office to check the status of an application.

If you are having technical issues submitting your application, please call the NEOGOV Help Line at 855-524-5627.  If there are any questions about this posting, other than your application status, please contact the Council Women & Youth Involvement Office.   

CONTACT INFORMATION NC 

Department of Administration 

Council for Women & Youth Involvement 

Attn: Jean McBride, Internship Coordinator  

325 N. Salisbury Street 

Raleigh, NC  27699-1322 

Phone: (984) 236-0345