On Monday, April 22, New Orleans tourism industry leaders and civic stakeholders gathered to announce the formation in their alliance because the Tricentennial Consortium, and present their Tricentennial Plan, a strong holistic vision to be implemented inside the next five years, a good way to create thousands of jobs, generate greatly increased tourism demand, spur economic development and make sure the continued growth of recent Orleans’ economy for many years to come back. The unified plan was under development for the past three years to support the goals of The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) 2010 Strategic Master Plan for the tourism and hospitality industry of the town of latest Orleans.
It is now culminating with the alignment of key components for execution over the subsequent five years to profit a better quarter century. The overarching goals are to draw 13.7 million visitors, create $11 billion in direct spending, 33,000 additional jobs and $700 million in tax revenue by the city’s 300th anniversary in 2018.
The Tricentennial Plan for these next five years leading as much as the city’s 2018 300th birthday involves several legislative and infrastructure initiatives and two major public policy positions:
1. The united industry (Consortium) is against a rise in sales tax impacting hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, attractions and retailers in New Orleans. We deeply appreciate our legislature deferring these taxes.
2. The united industry (Consortium) is strongly against any transfer or other use of Morial Convention Center financial reserves, that are made out of revenues generated by taxes proposed by the hot Orleans hotel and restaurant industry and that were collected and dedicated by law solely to convention center and hospitality infrastructure development. We consider any reallocations or taking to violate sound public and monetary policy, and to be violative of all agreements with the hotel and restaurant industry that brought about the enactment of the taxes, and really likely the law besides.
3. The united industry (Consortium) strongly supports a main Convention Center Vision Plan that comes with the riverfront and Convention Center Boulevard, the building, and the expansive Phase IV property, the financial and legal underpinnings of which can be supported in HB516 (Leger). This many faceted development of demand generators is intimately connected to and tied in with….
4. A united industry effort filed by the Consortium to create a brand new vision for an iconic demand generator, world class facility, architectural edifice, landscape or like stunning public use of the present World Trade Center Property in a fashion that has huge public and civic buy-in and broad public appeal. (The Wednesday filing by the Tricentennial Consortium to the city’s RFP.)
5. The united industry (Consortium) strongly supports an optional hotel assessment (not a tax, not a district, and no relation to last year’s bill) to boost new funds for marketing and promotion of recent Orleans as a destination for special events, corporate and association meetings, business, and leisure travel, both domestically and internationally. This optional hotel assessment program would go a ways to catching up our destination with our competitors in marketing capacity, and should immediately create hundreds of millions of bucks of impact on our city economy and create thousands of recent jobs. Here’s provided in SB 242 by Murray and Leger.
6. The united industry (Consortium) applauds and supports the Mayor’s recent announcement to construct a brand new world class airport. The event of the brand new facility is the ultimate piece in transforming our hospitality infrastructure and is necessary to our brand and world competitiveness.
These six public policy announcements and initiatives are united and indivisible and every is needed to put the groundwork for a quantum leap in economic development, infrastructure modernization, demand generator creation, tourism growth, job creation and the generation of recent tax revenues to handle our city.
The announcement was made today by Audubon Nature Institute President and CEO Ron Forman ; New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation Chair Darryl Berger and President and CEO Mark Romig ; New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau Chairman Gregory Rusovich and President & CEO Stephen Perry ; New Orleans Multicultural Tourism Network President Toni Rice ; Louisiana Restaurant Association CEO Stan Harris , SMG Senior Vp Doug Thornton ; New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Chair Melvin Rodrigue and President Bob Johnson ; and bigger New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association officer and Area General Manager of Marriott Corp. Robert Bray .
This plan was formed to shape the conversation and public debate of hopes, dreams and aspirations for our great city, preparing New Orleans for a better century, and approaching the tricentennial five year plan as a unified group with a unified voice, strong public policy positions, and an action plan of projects and legislation to execute.
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