Katrina – tourism impact worse than tsunami

Those of you who have been lucky enough to visit New Orleans should treasure the memory. The city is unlikely to ever be the same again.

It is a cruel irony that the citizens of New Orleans initially breathed a sigh of relief  after hurricane Katrina struck, thinking they had missed the worst of the storm, only to see the area engulfed in water.

Sandwiched between two lakes and, in some areas, up to 10 feet under water, geographers believe New Orleans has been an accident waiting to happen.

Tragically, this ‘accident’ will devastate the city’s tourism industry for months and in many ways the impact will be greater than that of the boxing day tsunami, although the death toll will be far  lower.

Of course, New Orleans is not the only affected area. Other southern states, such as Mississippi, where the town of Biloxi has been literally raised to the  ground, have been devastated. But as far as tourism is concerned, these are not  international attractions like New Orleans.

Some operators are hoping to be able to return to New Orleans within a month, but that sounds hopelessly optimistic. With 80% of the city under water, experts are saying it could take weeks just for the water to be pumped out. Then, only when the area is dry, will the true extent of the devastation become clear. A city’s entire infrastructure will have been destroyed.

After the tsunami, tourism recovered to the affected areas of the Maldives, Sri  Lanka and Thailand remarkably quickly, but the circumstances were different.

In the Maldives, many of the holiday islands  escaped the worst effects of the wave. Meanwhile, Sri  Lanka and Thailand were so dependant on the tourist  trade that their first priority was to quickly patch up the hotels first and  gradually rebuild everything else later. Within days we saw pictures of holidaymakers on beaches.

In New Orleans, no rebuilding can start until the water is drained away. Then, the priority will, quite rightly, be the inhabitants rather than tourists.

Although the city is a major attraction, it is, or was, first and foremost a vibrant western city of around half a million people, many of whom work outside the tourism industry.

New Orleans will get its own house in order and tourists will have to wait.

In the meantime, many visitors planning trips to the city will divert to other areas of the US and quickly forget the famous home of jazz.

The future looks bleak indeed for New Orleans.

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