Louisiana postpones tourism ads — casino business may suffer

Alan Sayre

Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2001 | 10:37 a.m.

NEW ORLEANS -- The state has postponed $2.5 million in television spots to attract visitors, perhaps a precursor of hard times ahead for the tourism and convention business that employs thousands.

In the face of the national economic slowdown, the state's tourism business already was having a tougher-than-normal year before terrorist attacks resulted in new security measures at airports and cuts in airline flights.

"With what's happened, all bets are off," Phillip Jones, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, said Monday.

The horror of the attacks on New York and Washington last Tuesday had barely sunk in before New Orleans lost a major aviation convention that had expected to attract 30,000 visitors. Three smaller business meetings scheduled to meet in New Orleans were postponed, putting the total direct economic loss at $37 million.

Tourism experts say the long-term effect on visitors is hard to gauge at this stage and will depend upon a variety of factors: how long it will be before the general population is again comfortable with flying, whether consumer confidence goes down and whether vacationers will want to stay closer to home for the time being.

About 60 percent of the visitors to New Orleans fly in, said Tim Ryan, an economist at the University of New Orleans who studies the metropolitan area's tourist-convention industry. But on a statewide basis, 80 percent of visitors drive into Louisiana, with the lion's share coming from a market stretching from New Mexico to North Carolina, Jones said.

"It's the only ray of hope we see for our industry in the short term, the fact that the majority of our visitors are from drive markets," Jones said.

State officials call tourism Louisiana's second-largest industry, behind health care, with 120,000 people either directly or indirectly employed. Last year, tourism brought $8.7 billion to Louisiana, an all-time record, Jones said.

But the number of domestic visitors to Louisiana dropped 18.2 percent to 4.33 million during the first quarter of 2001, the latest quarter that has been compiled, from 5.3 million a year ago, the state said.

The state has postponed its latest TV tourism ad campaign -- the largest in Louisiana's history -- and is considering postponing overseas trips to promote Louisiana to foreign visitors, Jones said.

"It may be people aren't interested in hearing 'Come to Louisiana and have a good time' if they are in a somber mood," he said.

The convention of the National Business Aviation Association was one of the first big meetings of the convention season in New Orleans, which typically slows down during the hot summer months and picks up again in the fall.

Ryan said the length of recovery is partially dependent upon whether any additional air attacks take place in the United States.

"If we have heightened security, people will adjust to that," Ryan said. "It's not something we like, but I think people will adjust. The main factor will be whether people regain their confidence in air travel."

The New Orleans Metropolitan Tourism and Convention Bureau said Monday that no more of the 30 conventions scheduled in the area through Oct. 1 had changed their plans.

Jones said the major border markets of Shreveport-Bossier City and Lake Charles, both flashing lights to casino gamblers from Texas, grab most of their visitors by auto travel. But two major events on the horizon -- next January's Super Bowl game in New Orleans and the Mardi Gras season -- depend upon a combination of both driving and flying tourists.

"Those events will be determined by what will happen in the next couple of months," Jones said. "I think it's too soon to say."

Major airlines that have announced reductions in regular flights include American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, all of which have a strong presence in New Orleans.

The first-quarter drop in statewide tourism also was blamed on higher gasoline prices that later leveled. A disruption in foreign oil supplies could drive fuel prices up again.

Joseph Cironi, president of The Chamber-Southwest Louisiana based in Lake Charles, said that out-of-state casino business could fall.

"I don't think the mood of the market is one of 'let's go to the casino and have fun,"' Cironi said. "Whether that lasts for a week or months, no one knows."