<B>New Orleans Is In Demand</B>
By Frank Rosci
The rapid growth of business travel and corporate meetings in New Orleans has spawned major hotel developments and other key improvements, upgrades and changes that directly impact the city's hospitality infrastructure, but officials say demand still exceeds supply.
With 3,556 meetings in 2000, which attracted 1.3 million attendees, who used 2.3 million room nights, there is a need for more hotels and more meeting space in the city and its environs, said a spokeswoman for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau.
According to the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., there were 2.5 million overnight business trips to the city in 1999--44 percent conference/conventions, 32 percent meetings and 24 percent sales/service.
A prominent addition to the New Orleans hotel scene will be the 452-room Ritz-Carlton. The $200 million restoration project, which created the new hotel from two of the city's historic district landmarks--the Maison Blanche and the Kress building, which each date from the early 1900s-- opened last fall on legendary Canal Street, on the edge of the famous French Quarter and 15 minutes from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
All guest rooms at the new hotel, which became the first five-star property to open in the city since 1985, are equipped with high-speed Internet access and dual-line and cordless phones. A fully staffed business center is available onsite. "For meetings and conferences, the hotel features tailor-made space for most any size gathering," said Scott Russell, director of sales and marketing at the Ritz-Carlton. There is one boardroom and 12 meeting rooms, with Internet access in all meeting spaces, he added. The Grand Ballroom measures 7,500 square feet, while the Lafayette Ballroom is 3,500 square feet.
Renovations of existing hotels in the city include a $12 million project at the 430-room Hotel Inter-Continental New Orleans on St. Charles Avenue. Guest room upgrades and amenities will include oversize desks complete with high-speed Internet access, voicemail, multiple dataports and electrical outlets, dual-line phones and three phones per room. "We are trying to accommodate the needs of our business travelers with a sophisticated work environment as well as a beautifully appointed room," said general manager Leland Lewis. Work began in November and is expected to be completed later this summer.
The Decatur Hotel Corp., a New Orleans-based company, plans to add eight new hotels by summer 2002, bringing the number of properties in its portfolio to 20. The company opened the 280-room Renaissance Hotel this past March and last month debuted the 137-room Le Cirque, with 3,000 square feet of meeting space. The company expects to complete a 126-room Holiday Inn Express, with 5,000 square feet of meeting space, by Sept. 2001, and a 500-room Crowne Plaza Hotel, with 25,000 square feet of meeting space, by June 2002.
Among New Orleans' newest and out-of-the-ordinary meeting venues is the National D-Day Museum, which opened on June 6, 2000, the 56th anniversary of D-Day, the beginning of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. The $25 million museum offers six rooms of meeting space, including a boardroom, that accommodate from 35 to 600 people. "The museum's space has been booked consistently since it opened. Our marketing strategy includes targeting groups to use the space for corporate functions and special events in addition to meetings," a spokesman said.
The New Orleans Arena, which opened in October 1999 adjacent to the Louisiana Superdome, rapidly has become a popular meeting space, too. "The combination of the two affords groups new opportunities," said an arena spokesman.
At the recently expanded New Orleans International Airport, several airlines have added new direct service to and from a number of domestic and international locations.
To better serve the city's active convention and meeting scene, New Orleans-based Convention Air began direct charter flights from Boston, New York, Newark and Minneapolis to New Orleans, said Warren Reuther, chairman and CEO of Hospitality Enterprises, of which Convention Air is a division. "Time is a huge issue, especially for meeting groups in the medical community. The charter flights will allow them to spend more time in the city, and less time traveling here and returning home," Reuther said.
In other transportation news, it's expected that by 2003 the nine-year-old Riverfront Streetcar and the historic St. Charles Avenue Streetcar will be connected via a Canal Streetcar line that will run from the Riverfront line to the end of Canal Street.
The Riverfront Streetcar runs along the Mississippi River from Esplanade Avenue to the Hilton Hotel, just past Riverwalk. The historic St. Charles Streetcar runs along St. Charles Avenue from downtown to uptown and back. It began operating in 1835, making it the nation's oldest active railway system. The extension will make travel throughout the city more convenient for travelers who may not be familiar with the city.