The Big Easy Remains A Hard Sell

Images on television news from a melee that occurred recently when protestors tried to get into a New Orleans City Hall hearing on the fate of a number of public housing units are just another example of how, more than two years after Hurricane Katrina, the city continues to battle perceptions about the state of its recovery.

According to a recently released study by the University of New Orleans, 26 percent of 775 respondents, none of whom live in Louisiana, believed parts of New Orleans remain underwater. Forty-three percent thought only one in 10 restaurants had reopened, and more than 33 percent believed the French Quarter was one of the hardest-hit areas – though it had been left relatively unscathed. Then there's the crime. The study found: “The city's reputation as a high-crime area has clearly permeated the nation's consciousness.”

The question is, with the occupancy rate at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center hovering in the mid-40s, down from a pre-hurricane high of close to 65 percent, are attendees staying away because they, too, think the city is under water, in disrepair and crime-ridden?

The reality is that image is everything.

Bob Johnson, president and general manager of the Morial Center, has been on the job just a few months. “It's hard to believe those misperceptions are still out there,” he said.

Another of the study's findings, that 60 percent of respondents thought most New Orleans residents were still in temporary housing, Johnson said, was “shocking.”

“There's a total disconnect between perception and reality,” he said.

Before the hurricane, a large portion of the meeting and exhibition business was the highly coveted association events that often brought thousands of visitors from across the United States. While a number of associations are currently on New Orleans' calendar, some have canceled events planned in the pre-Katrina days, while others are giving it a chance.

Last year, the Specialty Tools and Fasteners Distributors Assn. announced it was pulling its Nov. 8-10, 2009, Annual Convention & Trade Show out of the city. Georgia Foley, STFDA show director, would only say, “I really don't want to get into it.”

In 2006, another group, the Intl. Reading Assn., withdrew its meeting scheduled in New Orleans April 18-22, 2010, which was expected to draw 20,000 attendees. At the time, Melanie Hughes Younger, the IRA's director of professional meetings and conferences, declined to confirm the event was no longer going to be in New Orleans. However, Kelly Schulz, director of sales, public relations and marketing for the Metropolitan New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the IRA made a “blind decision” and did not send anyone to the city to do a site inspection “to see for themselves. ... They felt that the (post-hurricane Katrina) recovery was not far enough along.”

Because neither organization would directly comment on its decision to cancel events scheduled for New Orleans, their reasons remain unclear, but, Schulz said, “we know the images that came from New Orleans during Katrina are seared in people's minds.”

Even so, the bureau is working to battle what it deems are misperceptions and rebuild the city's meeting and exhibition business.

“Our approach is business as usual as far as marketing the center goes,” Schulz said. “We have found to be the case that seeing is believing.” The bureau regularly hosts site visits that include not just planners, according to Schulz, but also exhibitors and trade journalists.

“We have hotels and restaurants and a beautifully renovated convention center, and everything there's been in the city for over 100 years,” she added. “A lot of attention and money has been spent on people coming to the city.”

When the Natl. Cable Telecommunications Assn. contemplated bringingThe Cable Show to New Orleans this year, a number of people in the organization, as well as exhibitors and journalists that cover the industry, visited the city last fall.

“What we saw there was a city that was ready to host a convention,” said Joy Sims, NCTA's director of media relations. New Orleans has hosted the show eight times before, most recently in 2004, when it was still called The Natl. Show. The 2008 edition will be held at Morial May 18-20.

“We're really excited to go back,” Sims added. “We all got a good impression. Downtown looks like downtown New Orleans. There are no buildings with wood shutters.”

She also said hotels and flights wouldn't be a problem for the show's 15,000 attendees. “We are very cautious,” Sims added. “We wouldn't go somewhere where there's not room or flights. We want people to have a good show.”

The NECA Show (of the Natl. Electrical Contractors Assn.), scheduled Sept. 18-20, 2005, at the Ernest N. Morial CC, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the city in late August, was scuttled. However, it is trying to find a way back.

Beth Ellis, NECA's executive director of conventions and exhibitions, said it was difficult to cancel a show everyone had spent so much time preparing, but there was no choice. She has been back to New Orleans a few times since then to see if and when the city would be ready to host another of NECA's events.

“They are doing a marvelous job (in New Orleans),” Ellis said. “Meeting planners just need to go there.” Bourbon Street is cleaner than it used to be, she added, and the restaurants are all open.

Ellis wasn't surprised by the study's findings. “When an area is devastated like New Orleans, people are going to continue to see bad,” she said. “They just need to open their eyes.”

NECA will hold a labor relations meeting with 250 to 300 attendees in New Orleans in March. Ellis said The NECA Show is already booked several years in advance in other cities, but the group might take another shot at New Orleans one day.

“We wouldn't say no for sure,” she added. “I am a big believer in New Orleans, and I hope only the best for them.”

In the meantime, New Orleans continues to work on its image even if, as Johnson believes, the national media isn't helping much. “Every time there's a news story on New Orleans, they're showing video clips from two years ago,” he said. “People in the hinterlands still look at it and think it's like that now. It's very frustrating, and we as a convention and meeting community are out there trying to make this a destination.”

Besides site visits, Schulz said the CVB has been working in other ways to let people know New Orleans is in good shape:

• a 10-city roadshow that included New York, Los Angeles, Paris and London
• production of a 13-episode TV show it hopes to offer to a cable travel channel
• hiring a full-time director of group public relations to market New Orleans to meeting planners
• a marketing campaign with the tagline “Forever New Orleans” on billboards around the U.S.

Despite the effort, Schulz conceded it's nearly impossible to reach every single person. “There's not enough money in the world in some ways,” she added.