Dear Friends of New Orleans & Company,
As we enter the third quarter, we have many reasons to celebrate, for example:
- Lowest Murder Rate in 55 Years - First, let’s acknowledge our NOPD and law enforcement partners for a significant reduction in crime, making the city safer for our residents and visitors. New Orleans had the lowest number of murders YTD June 30, 2025, since 1970, when 48 murders were reported through June of 1970! For more encouraging stats, please visit neworleans.com/visitorsafety.
- Amtrak Mardi Gras Service Begins August 18 – For the first time since Hurricane Katrina – Amtrak is re-launching scenic rail service connecting New Orleans, Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi, Pascagoula and Mobile. Tickets are selling out quickly, reinforcing our Gulf Coast region as a great place to live, work, learn, invest, and visit.
- Summer Events and Conventions - New Orleans & Company is bringing in new summer events; expanding existing events and accelerating marketing campaigns to accelerate summer business. For locals and visitors, the 2025 summer calendar includes GalaxyCon July 11-13; UFC Fighting Championship on July 19; NOLA Pickle Fest August 6-10; and the US Gymnastics Championship August 7-10. In addition to a 23,000-attendee youth convention, our team has secured dozens of in-house meetings to take place within hotels during July, August and September, bringing thousands of attendees.
- National Awards - New Orleans was named number two on the list of Travel & Leisure’s 2025 World’s Best Awards. The Elysian Bar at the Hotel Peter and Paul was named best hotel bar in the U.S. by Rolling Stone’s 2025 Travel Awards. These awards are priceless and help shape visitor’s future travel plans.
Everything we do at New Orleans & Company is designed to inspire, promote and encourage travel to our city for the economic, social and community benefit of New Orleans and its people. Below are some of the high points of the work our team is doing toward our strategic goals.
Strategic Goal One: Deliver the Most Innovative and Exceptional Sales and Service
The Convention Sales team achieved 108.1% of their 780,000-room night goal with 843,192 room nights booked, year-to-date. The team continues to book business in the short and long term, with bookings into the year 2040. I am proud of our Convention Sales and Services team as well as our Tourism Sales, Membership/External Affairs, Public Relations and Marketing teams for achieving their first and second quarter goals in a competitive and complex environment.
Strategic Goal Two: Make New Orleans a Great Place to Live, Work and Visit
- Hospitality Certificate Program: We have selected 25 participants for the second cohort of our Hospitality Certificate Program. These individuals represent the future of our industry and will receive targeted training in emotional intelligence, guest service excellence, conflict resolution, and communications. This program underscores our commitment to nurturing local talent and elevating service excellence throughout New Orleans. To learn more, visit neworleans.com.
- SEBConnect: We are proud to partner with the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center to expand SEBConnect, an app designed to connect hospitality businesses with RFPs from local, small, and emerging businesses. This initiative offers companies with large-scale procurement needs—such as landscaping, furniture, local products, staffing and more—a streamlined way to engage diverse suppliers and strengthen our region’s economy. If you are interested in receiving bids for your procurement needs, please submit here. We encourage all members to explore SEBConnect as a powerful resource for building inclusive, community-driven business relationships.
Strategic Goal Three: Create and Own a Clear, World-Class Brand for New Orleans
- Our brand campaign that ran April 15 – June 30 in 41 markets drove over 202 million impressions, 70.2K video completions and 98.4K site visits. The brand lift study is also showing Connected TV is driving a 4.4% lift in Ad Recall within key markets and a 2.6% lift overall. Next week we’ll kick off a new, expanded six-week COOLinary advertising campaign to encourage hotel bookings and attraction visits, in addition to restaurant reservations. TV spots and digital display ads will hit five different types of travelers including luxury and younger value-seekers in markets between Lafayette and Mobile/Pensacola, as well as Jackson, Mississippi.
- Our PR team published the second quarter issue of Tourism Matters, all about rediscovering the magic of New Orleans this summer. In case you missed it, other recent exciting announcements include a partnership with MindTrip, an AI-powered platform that will help transform our inspiring content into personalized and actionable trip plans for visitors; and record-breaking 2024 visitor numbers that hit 19 million visitors for the second time ever and for the first time since Covid.
Strategic Goal Four: Restore International Tourism
The Tourism Sales team and I attended IPW in Chicago engaging in more than 230 appointments with travel buyers from around the world. Our international sales and marketing teams joined us from the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Australia, Germany, and India. The demand for New Orleans was very strong. The PR team also attended IPW to conduct dozens of meetings with journalists and media outlets, including this AFAR podcast. Planning already has begun for New Orleans to host IPW 2027 and there is so much excitement among international buyers to return to New Orleans for our first IPW since 2016.
Over the next few weeks, my family and I are planning a summer “staycation” and I hope you will do the same. For those of us who are fortunate to live and work in New Orleans, summer is the perfect time to explore our neighborhoods, support our local businesses, and embrace the experiences that make our city unlike anywhere else in the world. Time off is essential to your well-being. What better way to enjoy it than in your own backyard?
Walter J. Leger III
President & CEO
New Orleans & Company