The news of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s federal indictments has hit the national media. Sadly, New Orleans and Louisiana have a reputation that political corruption is part of our way of life, but is this negative publicity about Cantrell’s federal indictments going to hurt tourism?
As bad as the national publicity surrounding Cantrell’s federal indictments is - I don’t think it will damage tourism in New Orleans.
People come to New Orleans to party and have fun and I don’t think they care about whether our mayor is facing federal indictments.
Think about a city you would like to visit - Las Vegas, New York, Miami, Los Angeles. Would you not go to any of those cities because their mayors were under federal indictments? No! You would go and the fact that the mayor of any city you wanted to visit was facing federal indictments would not have any impact on your decision to visit any one of those cities.
The problem might come when big companies consider whether or not to move their businesses to New Orleans. The thought of dealing with corruption would be unsettling to the point where a business might decide not to move here because they just don’t want to do business with a corrupt city.
Our next mayor will have a difficult job of trying to change the image that New Orleans is corrupt. Mayor Cantrell is facing federal indictments and a recent mayor went to prison for corruption and the stories about how underhanded dealings can be with our City Hall are prominent. Our city leaders have made doing business in New Orleans difficult and that’s an image our new mayor will have to change.
There is a lot of pressure on the voters of New Orleans to get it right this time. But the good news is I don’t think Cantrell’s indictments will have a negative impact on tourism because people come to New Orleans to have a blast - not do business with or hang out with the mayor.