Restaurants and bars are firing on all cylinders, live music is coming back strong and the streets appear packed with visitors once again - New Orleans and Company CEO Stephen Perry joined Newell on the program Wednesday morning to explain where things are headed next.
“Let’s get an update on the state of the tourism industry and an outlook for the future,” Newell began. “We just had a big weekend!”
“I think there's a sigh of relief going on right now, combined with excitement,” Perry said. “Looking at this last few weeks, beginning with spring break and what was really a breakout weekend for us this past weekend - it is just so encouraging that New Orleans’ largest and most important industry financially has got its legs back under it again.”
“A number of cities have talked about the challenges of staffing up to receive these tourists,” Newell said. “You guys have been all over this, talking about the number of openings within the state, and within the city - any reports there?”
“There's still a struggle, I have to be honest,” Perry answered. “When you look at our biggest challenges ahead right now, most of us in the industry would put the staffing issue at the forefront. We're starting to get visitors back, although not as much during the week, because we don't have conventions, we don't have our festivals back quite yet. But this is a serious, serious problem and it's a problem all over the United States. You've got people not only being cross-trained in different jobs, but having to step up and do far more. Even on the hotel side, there've been hotel general managers who've actually been stripping beds on a Sunday or Monday morning. We all laugh and say they don't know how to make a bed properly, but they're good at pulling linen... we're short-staffed, there is no doubt about it. And it's probably about 20 or 25,000 people. This is true for nearly every restaurant, nearly every hotel. It's going to come, but it's going to come back gradually. We've seen a rise in wages, extra benefits being offered, it’s probably the best time to get a job and start a career or kickstart your career in tourism.”
“Stephen, I've said this before, and I hate to repeat myself, but if you believe in yourself and what you can bring to the table, the chance that you have at upward mobility right now in this industry is like never before. If you want to make this a career, you can prove yourself and move up that corporate ladder faster than probably any time in the history of this industry!”
“You're so right,” Perry agreed. Our industry does not require an MBA. It doesn't even require a college degree. We have so many managers that have come in and started with high school degrees - some even not quite finishing that that are working on GED who have come in, gotten jobs and moved up the ladder so fast just through working hard. In our industry in particular, they're not looking necessarily for a fancy resume, what they're looking for is good people and people that can move up very quickly and become supervisors and become managers and become directors. We have a commercial out on television right now that has some of the people themselves from different restaurants and different hotels and the message they have is, you can come in and start at the lowest level and leave a manager... those that run hotels, restaurants and so forth in this city are not worried about fancy things on paper. They are looking for opportunities to give people a great life and career. You can have whatever you imagined for your life by coming into this industry.”
Hear the entire interview in the audio player below.
