[StBernard] Louisiana promoters' message: New Orleans open for tourists

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Louisiana promoters' message: New Orleans open for tourists
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Beth Kassab
Sentinel Staff Writer

May 16, 2006

Selling a vacation spot that the world thinks is under water is not easy no
matter how many famous people lend their faces to your new ad campaign or
how many free Cajun and Zydeco CDs you hand out, say Louisiana's top tourism
officials.

Television footage of flood-submerged rooftops broadcast across the globe
has left many international travelers wary of visiting New Orleans and its
surrounding areas since hurricanes Katrina and Rita wreaked havoc there
nearly nine months ago.

"I had one tour operator this morning say that literally the consumers
really believe the entire state of Louisiana was washed away," said Nancy
Noone Broussard, director of tourism for the Baton Rouge Area Convention &
Visitors Bureau.

Broussard and other Louisiana promoters were in Orlando last week stumping
for business at the Travel Industry Association of America's annual travel
trade show -- and hoping to spark the state's $9.4 billion tourism industry.

The promoters' driving theme: New Orleans and the surrounding areas are back
in business with the famous historical French Quarter virtually unscathed by
the storm.

But not everyone is getting the message.

Michiko Takeuchi, president of J-One Tours in Tokyo, said her clients are
mostly interested in New York, Las Vegas and Orlando. New Orleans is no
longer near the top of the list.

"Not really, because of the damage of the hurricanes," Takeuchi said.

Connie Campbell, senior tourism sales manager for the New Orleans
Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau, said her experience at the show
last week and at the World Travel Market, another major travel trade show in
London, was encouraging.

"I can't say all of them, but 95 percent of them [tour operators] didn't
pull us from their brochures," Campbell said. "That's a lot to be said after
seeing all that negative publicity."

While the official start of the next hurricane season is less than three
weeks away on June 1, there is reason to be hopeful that tourism is on its
way back, she said.

The American Library Association, for example, is bringing a convention of
25,000 people to town next month -- New Orleans' first major show since
Katrina.

"We had to fly people in and show them the city because the coverage was so
scary you would think, 'Oh, my God, I can't send my [convention] delegates
there,' " she said.

Several major shows canceled in New Orleans after the storm, including the
National Business Aviation Association, which rescheduled to Orlando.

Hotels in the New Orleans metro area are running at about 79 percent
occupancy for the first quarter of this year, a seemingly healthy, but
misleading rate because the number of hotel rooms available is down nearly
30 percent.

The city has 27,000 hotel rooms, about 70 percent of its total before the
hurricane, and 2,600 restaurants.

Officials said New Orleans and Louisiana are ready to handle more tourism
traffic. While the region's service-industry work force was initially
depleted because so many people fled the flooding, jobs and workers are
starting to come back -- as are volunteers and tourists.

Steve Miller, a 19-year-old Rollins College student, left Sunday for New
Orleans. By day, Miller and his college pals will help rebuild portions of
the city, but by night they will become tourists in the city's historical
districts. They took a similar trip in March.

Miller was surprised, he said, by how alive the historical parts of the city
seemed.

"My vision of the French Quarter was largely shaped by images seen on TV
after the hurricane," he said. "I really did expect it to be a lot worse
than it really was. I expected it to be relatively empty. I was really
surprised to see a lot of people there."

And JazzFest, Campbell said, was hugely successful earlier this month with
record-setting crowds.

Fighting perceptions overseas remains a challenge, though.

While New Orleans food, music and culture are famous around the world "and
[are] still there," Broussard said, some markets have been hesitant to
return.

This fall, Sony is set to debut a remake of All the King's Men, a film based
on the fictional account of the life of Louisiana Gov. Huey P. Long. Much of
the movie was filmed in Louisiana, and tourism officials are planning
screening parties and contests overseas to pump up tour packages that would
allow visitors to see first-hand the film's location.

A separate ad campaign titled "Come fall in love with Louisiana all over
again" debuted last month in the U.S. with the likes of chef Emeril Lagasse,
actor John Goodman and other big names.

"I think once we get to our one-year anniversary, which will be Aug. 29, I
think people are just really going to settle in and move on," Campbell said.
"I know our city will be flooded with media because everyone wants to do the
one-year-after story. And you know what? It's like, come on over. Please,
come and see it."

Beth Kassab can be reached at bkassab at orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5448.





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