Will the tourists come back?
Tags: touristsIf the tourists don't come back and soon, NO is going to be in big trouble, according to the WaPo:
…Leisure travel, business conventions and major events such as Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest and the Sugar Bowl are by far the dominant drivers of the New Orleans economy. They account for $5 billion to $8 billion in revenue per year, according to the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau. Before the storm, tourism employed 85,000 workers in the city.
But the Convention Center, a fetid refuge from the flood, is wrecked and not expected to reopen till the end of March. The Nokia Sugar Bowl has decamped to Atlanta, at least for next year. The traditional Thanksgiving week football game between rivals Grambling State and Southern, known as the Bayou Classic, has moved to Houston this year. Halloween, typically a big draw for voodoo lovers, will be significantly scaled down. This city has already lost $3 billion worth of anticipated revenue from events canceled from Sept. 1 through March 31, according to the visitors bureau…
To make matters worse, the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, the city's crucial marketing arm, is virtually shut down. The bureau runs in part on hotel room taxes. Federal workers who have booked up many hotels for the next several months often pay no tax. There has even been talk of the city airport going broke, something that would certainly choke New Orleans to death. Business leaders say, though, that there is no way the federal government would let that happen.
Perhaps not, but the calculus for getting this city's staggered tourism economy back on its feet is daunting and riddled with Catch-22s. And time is limited. Even ardent city promoters acknowledge that New Orleans, lacking any other major industry, will fall into despair and bankruptcy unless tourists start coming back soon. If they do not, the 3,000 government layoffs recently announced by Nagin will be just the start…
