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Tourism on hold indefinitely in New Orleans
With a death toll now estimated in the thousands, tourism in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast area will be on hold indefinitely, tourism officials say.
The area is also a premier location for meetings and conventions, which are now being switched to other sites.
The largest meeting groups in New Orleans will probably re-locate to similar sized markets such as Las Vegas and Orlando. Convention and visitors officials in San Diego and Chicago may also add more business. Smaller groups will be looking at other locations.
“Visitors to New Orleans spend $5 billion per year, and 40% of that number is convention and business meeting,” Donna Karl, vice president of client relations for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau, told Forbes.com.
The Morial Convention Center in New Orleans is one of the largest meeting facilities in the US. It has more than 1.1 million square feet of exhibit space.
Hurricane Katrina arrived just before autumn, which is the center’s busiest convention season.
Officials said it was impossible to know when convention business and tourism in general will return to normal.
Stephen Perry, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau, said:
“Only the next few weeks will determine whether tourism will begin rebounding in late October or early November, or whether it is pushed into early next year.”
Despite the vast devastation in New Orleans, however, the city’s best-known tourism area, the French Quarter, suffered far less damage than other areas. The French Quarter is on relatively high ground. Many hotels were apparently not badly damaged in that area. But with residents not expected to return for months, there is a serious shortage of personnel to operate any tourist attractions.
Most major airlines waived change fees for New Orleans-bound passengers who want to rebook trips. Southwest is giving full refunds for travel through 9 January.
The New Orleans Louis Armstrong Airport is set to re-open 1 November.
Report by David Wilkening
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