New Orleans tourism is pulling itself out of the doldrums one carload at a time.
Mark Romig with New Orleans and Company. says the company’s plans to market the newly re-opened New Orleans is to attract people from a day’s drive or less to the city.
The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate profiled the Norris family, who drove here from Chattanooga, Tennessee, as they came to French Quarter as an outing to celebrate their daughter’s graduation from high school.
Karleigh Norris says the trip was a childhood dream.
Though the Norris’s did the usual tourism thing, sight seeing, enjoying the food, etc, one thing was missing: other tourists.
They remarked the French Quarter was nearly empty at high noon, despite restrictions having been relaxed for a couple of weeks now.
Romig says the tourism rehabilitation will be built upon the driving tourist.
Romid told the paper “"The drive market has always been our sweet spot."
And the numbers bear this out.
Last year 70% of all visitors came from a one-day drive or hour-and-a half long flight into Armstrong International.
Romig says travel industry consultant Longwoods International says the average American tourist will take a car trip of 200-miles or less in the next six weeks.
N.O.&Co is plastering the surrounding 250-mile radius with advertising looking to attract people to the city.
"It's all about the great things that New Orleans has offered for so many years," he says.