Tourists visit New Orleans for a wide range of reasons – from family vacations to festivals, as well as girls’ weekends, holiday travel, sporting events and also business meetings and conventions. Visitors staying in New Orleans for conventions bring in huge amounts of revenue for our city all at once, which is why cities across the country compete and market themselves to various convention and meetings planners to try to score the huge boost to local economies that they provide.
New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (photo via mccno.com)
The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau works tirelessly to develop relationships with meeting planners, tour operators, journalists and other influencers to bring in out-of-town business for New Orleans. Did you know that the New Orleans CVB is regularly named one of the top five CVBs in the country for customer service ? That’s a huge honor coming from people who plan meetings for a living and work with virtually every CVB in the country. In 2012 alone, CVB employees traveled a total of 345,182 miles promoting New Orleans to meeting and travel planners, not just around the country, but around the world, while the PR team assisted 1,315 journalists and bloggers, creating positive press for New Orleans. Because of those efforts, in 2012 the Convention Sales team booked 1.3 million definite hotel room nights, creating an economic impact of $1.19 billion. The Tourism Sales team booked 305, 491 hotel room nights, creating an impact of $250 million for our economy. And each of those hotel stays means plenty of people spending in our restaurants, shops, live entertainment venues, and other businesses around the city.
Just as big music festivals bring in important fuel for our economy, the many varied conventions that we host in New Orleans provide more opportunities for tourists to spend here, as well as boost our reputation for being one of the greatest cities in America, encouraging further growth from tourism in our economy. Keep the conventions coming, New Orleans CVB; we will welcome attendees and guests with open arms.