The press release from the American Hotel and Lodging Association on the findings of their Oxford Economics report are sobering.
In the U.S. the loss of tax revenue from the shuttering of the tourism industry amounts to $16.8 billion.
Louisiana alone lost $499.1 million.
WWL spoke with Mark Romig, Chief Marketing Officer for New Orleans and Company described the size and scope of that big of a loss.
“Without the tourism economy, each household in Louisiana would be paying about $1,100 dollars more in taxes. So it shows you how important it is to get our economy up and running, not just the tourism economy, but all the other sectors.”
Romig also talked about how big an effect the loss is having on the City of New Orleans.
“Back in March, the Mayor’s office mentioned that at least 40% of the city’s revenue that it bases its city services on comes from the retail activity that you see with visitation.”
Romig says it’s even become tough for his own agency to plan for next year:
“It’s having a major effect on how to budget and I know they’re working very hard to try and figure out how this will affect this New Year budget coming ahead of us.”
Despite all this, Romig is keeping his eyes on the future, “We are in a very slow and methodical recovery. It is not going to be an overnight fix by any means. It will take several months to perhaps a couple years to truly come out of it.”
And he is optimistic about New Orleans recovery, “As soon as we can get to the other side of the pandemic and people feel comfortable travelling and we can get our airport back up and running and people are driving in and they’re spending the night, and they’re eating in our restaurants and they’re going to our attractions, the better off our city and our state will be.”
