|
|
|
|
the cvb exec
J. Stephen Perry A remarkable couple of years
J. STEPHEN PERRY is the president and CEO of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau.
MPG Stephen: We discuss every element of this with meeting planners coming to New Orleans - whenever you examine any city, the issues of personal safety are very important. We are very fortunate. New Orleans, in terms of its ability to handle and manage the safety of attendees to major conventions, sporting events, as well as the leisure side, has one of the best records in the country. That is one of our real positives and as we sit down with planners and look at the history of attendee safety in New Orleans, they’re bsolutely astonished. In fact, it has not been a negative for us but has ended up being a positive. We have had so many events, especially since Katrina, and some of the largest conventions in the country – American College of Cardiology, National Association of Realtors, American Library Association, the list goes on. Those events came off flawlessly and when you add the high profile events that have been problematic in other cities like the NBA All Star game and the BCS National Championship games, our record has been so flawless that I think it has given a tremendous degree of comfort to our potential customers.
What is New Orleans doing for planners that other major cities may not be doing? One of the things that we do is that we have very strong attendance building programs that we can provide. We produce micro-sites co-branded between our city, its attractions and the organization. We do customized streaming videos for web sites. We have a vice-president of client relations, Donna Karl, who, for 18 years, was one of the top meeting planners in the country with the American Academy of Pediatrics. She sits down with our individual customers to work through any potential issues, not as a sales person but as a life-long planner and CMP. Our goal is to be the most meeting planner friendly city in the United States. One of the things that we have done is putting together teams from hotels, the convention center and the CVB that make it seamless for the planner to work here. During the recent NBA All-Star event in New Orleans, a number of players and celebrities participated in a volunteer program, NBA Cares, to help rebuild parts of the city. How can other organizations participate in programs like this? We have the most sophisticated “volun-tourism” program in the US. Many major corporations and associations have social responsibility programs and look for outreach activities that connect their organization to the community. Separate from our director of public relations we have a staff member on a director level that works exclusively on PR and communication issues for our convention customers. That person, in combination with our “volun-tourism’ team, helps connect organizations to opportunities whether it be in schools, universities, Habitat for Humanity, public parks, in virtually every kind of opportunity that you can imagine. As a result, people that come here leave not just with a great meeting experience but with a feeling of genuine social commitment.
Two of your major convention hotels have yet to reopen. What’s the latest news from the Hyatt Regency and the Fairmont? The Hyatt will open at the end of 2009. The Fairmont will reopen as the Roosevelt – back to its original name and original glory - a Waldorf Astoria property - which is a really great addition. We currently have 20,000 rooms within walking distance of the convention center. New Orleans has a much better inventory than many much larger cities and we’re really proud of that.
What is at the top of your “to-do” list? My top priority is communicating that the entire tourism infrastructure of New Orleans is now fresher and more vibrant than it was before the storm. The hotels have received hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment. The convention center has received $60 million of renovations and looks better that the day it opened. The French Quarter has been the focus of a massive new cleaning program and is now cleaner and fresher than it’s been in my adult life.
Every day, we focus on educating more and more people around the country that the business core of New Orleans, the hospitality infrastructure, the French Quarter, and the historic districts are in better shape than they were prior to Katrina and New Orleans is better than ever. Our convention base is back and we feel tremendous about it. Our convention calendar and our city has been packed this year. It’s nice to not only feel normal again but to feel even better. It’s been a remarkable couple of years. What is the greatest lesson you have learned from your experience in dealing with the effects of Katrina. What advice do you have for your CVB colleagues? From an emergency situation, my advice is that no emergency plan is ever adequate. Also, if you adhere to the basic principle that the customer comes first and that we are in the business not of selling but of building long-term mutually beneficial business relationships, it makes the customer paramount and creates an opportunity where we are working with our customers as long-term business partners. For us it has been incredibly rewarding because the deepness of the relationship of our customers has really been enhanced through this. When you go through something like we all have after 9/11 and after Katrina, it makes you aware that we must constantly innovate to offer new programs, new services, and new solutions to customers that keep us on the cutting edge of making buying decisions that go beyond just the quality of our destination. |
|
||||||
: Planners considering future meetings in New Orleans have raised the question regarding the safety and security of their attendees. What is your response? 