The cancellations of Jazz and Essence Fest will pummel New Orleans’ expected 2020 tourism revenue, with more festivals likely to announce similar decisions in the near future.
CEO of New Orleans and Company, the city’s convention and visitor’s bureau, Mark Romig says the loss of those iconic events is a blow, but they’ll be back.
“Build your list of things that you are going to want to eat and purchase and music that you want to listen to and just get ready for a really great one in 2021,” says Romig.
But in the meantime, that means a lot of lost money for the Crescent City. 475,000 visitors attended Jazz Fest last year for an estimated 400 million dollar total economic impact. Romig says that money and money from other festivals is not easy to replace, and 12 million visitors stayed overnight in New Orleans in 2018, a large portion of those due to these iconic festivals.
“We are at more than 145 festivals a year and tourism generates approximately 50% of our city’s operating budget with the retail that goes along with that,” says Romig.
Romig says they’re pushing to avoid a total loss. He says large gatherings may be off the table this year but the city still offers other tourism opportunities, but one sector must reopen for that to happen.
“Once we are able to get to a point where restaurants are back up and operating, probably under a whole new protocol there’s no doubt that there will be lots of other activities that will emerge to fill the vacuum,” says Romig.
New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell has called for the cancellation of all large events, including sporting events, for the remainder of 2020.
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