How the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation is bringing a great visitor city back to life
In Europe, a lot of tourism development work at a regional or city level is concerned with improving the reputation and standing of an area – often from a low base. New Orleans, on the other hand, has had a different set of challenges.
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, it was a vibrant leisure and business tourism destination. It was regularly voted as one of the ‘must visit’ destinations in the US. Many Europeans might now suppose that this scenario is a thing of the past – however, New Orleans is recovering well from the heavyweight blow of the hurricane and, while things are not back to normal, the picture is a lot brighter than many might suppose.
At the Emetrics Summit in Washington DC recently, I was privileged to speak to Jeremy Cooker of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation. He described his role with the NOTMC , how the NOTMC operates, what their tourism challenges are post Katrina and how the New Orleans tourism industry is working to overcome them to bring a great visitor city back to life.
What is the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation?
Before going into detail, it might be useful to get an overview of the role of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation and how it runs. The NOTMC is a non-profit organisation that is funded through local taxation (hotel, casino and some transport taxes) as well as receiving some funds through the City Budget. The company deals only with New Orleans although there are obvious synergies with tourism promotion at the state of Louisiana level.
The remit of the NOTMC takes in such aspects as advertising, PR, online promotion and brochures and it does this on a budget of approximately $5 million dollars. Spending on admin has to be below 5% of their income with the remaining 95% to be spent on dedicated expenditures and marketing.
Jeremy’s job title might seem a little odd to some – he is online marketing consultant and hotel liaison – but I think his role is a fascinating industry example of how integrating intelligence from multiple sources provides a solid and successful model of working. And it seems that one of the real keys to making the NOTMC a success is the involvement of key industry players, making this an important part of his role.
Jeremy explained that one of their more important forms of research is monthly meetings with hotel owners, general managers, and revenue managers – people who are also major constituents of NOTMC. He gave the example that at informal meetings, hoteliers were able to give NOTMC an informal heads-up on whether a particular month was looking as though it might under-perform. In this instance, NOTMC can then concentrate its resources to push people into the periods where there is excess capacity.
This shouldn’t be taken as implying that big hotels dominate and smaller operators are muscled aside, as representatives of these are also in touch with NOTMC and the organisation endeavours to keep the balance.
As well as intelligence gathered through regular contact with industry players, Jeremy mentioned that information such as that provided by the STAR reports is invaluable in identifying industry trends.
Jeremy’s role also takes in online marketing and he noted that they have seen a strong performance in this area through targeted use of their own and third party websites. I met Jeremy at the Emetrics Summit, a conference dedicated to measuring and understanding online visitors, and he mentioned that one of their next tasks is to fully utilise the mass of customer data produced through the process of web interactions in order to better connect with their customers.
Additionally, NOTMC is looking to use blogging as away of reaching new markets as well as hearing the voice of the customer. One of the key terms at the Emetrics conference was ‘engagement’ and NOTMC, like many other organisations, is looking to improve how it can engage with what the customer is experiencing and saying at many different levels.
Open for business – New Orleans tourism now
So what are the differences pre and post Katrina in New Orleans tourism? Before the hurricane, New Orleans had a strong leisure market (Q4 2005 was on track to become of the strongest quarters in some time) as well as a thriving convention market. It was a destination that had a strong appeal to the family market as well as broad appeal to other niche markets. Needless to say, some of this has changed.
The convention business suffered badly and this has had a noticeable impact on the local economy. Oddly enough the relief efforts in the area helped to contribute to a small recovery in the first year after the storm in that it provided an influx of ‘guests’ in the form of relief workers into the area.
Two years down the line major tourist areas like the French Quarter, Garden District, Downtown, and Magazine Street are back to their former glory – in fact, some might say those areas have come back stronger than they were before the storm. There are still damaged areas of the city but these tend not to be the main tourism areas. However, the family market has not yet returned but NOTMC is finding some success with the Gay and Lesbian market instead.
Some of you might have preconceptions about what this means new market segment looks like but it might be fairer from a European viewpoint to describe this as an appeal to a ‘metrosexual’ market – people that want to come to experience authentic arts, good food and good music. In New Orleans, the Gay and Lesbian visitors have led the way by responding more strongly to this proposition.
It also helped that festivals such as Mardi Gras already existed as a base upon which to grow this visitor segment and all the signs are that this is a tactic that is working well with visitors staying longer and spending more.
Closer to the ground, Jeremy notes that the industry is still diverse, reflecting the usual range of small, privately owned bed and breakfasts, boutique hotels and large, convention-friendly hotels, who at times may share different viewpoints. NOTMC works closely with all parties to ensure every group is represented equitably and bases most of its marketing actions on sound research.
The message that came through from this conversation was that New Orleans is open for business. The city recently sold out for a convention in early November, and is anticipating very busy first and second quarters in 2008 with events such as the BCS Championship game, the Sugar Bowl, Mardi Gras and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
Many people feel a strong affinity for New Orleans and so these probably will drift back in time but Jeremy concluded our conversation by encouraging you all to come to New Orleans – it’s open for business and you can be assured of a warm welcome. For travel planning info on New Orleans, see NewOrleansOnline.com.
All images are used courtesy of NewOrleansOnline.
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This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Destination research, Industry interview, Marketing strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.