An Open Letter to the Meetings, Conventions and Travel Industry

Dear Colleagues,

This is an incredibly difficult time for the citizens of New Orleans, its surrounding area and other areas along the gulf coast in neighboring states. We are most grateful for the overwhelming offering of support from so many of you. Our priorities are to make sure our employees and the employees of all of our partner businesses are safe, and that we take care of the needs of our customers who have plans to hold future meetings in New Orleans.

There are many organizations that are faced with urgent time frames for decisions on the meetings scheduled in New Orleans. We will work with any organization on re-scheduling their meeting for a later date in New Orleans, or on relocating the meeting to another city, perhaps by switching years in their rotation, so that meeting can return to New Orleans in an upcoming year. We have had an outpouring of offers from other Convention and Visitor Bureaus to do just that, and we are so appreciative.

The hospitality industry is the economic driver for New Orleans and our people depend on a healthy industry. We need your help at this time more than ever.

For the moment, we would ask that you direct people to our website at www.neworleanscvb.com for information and contacts within the CVB. Current DC and Chicago offices are on our website. Remote offices will be established in Baton Rouge within the week. Steven Hacker has graciously offered me an office at IAEM and Michael Gehrisch at DMAI has offered an office to Sallee Pavlovich in DC for next week as well.

Again, we are so grateful for your help. We have many people in New Orleans dependent on us and on you. This industry has shown great strength in previous crises, and I know will do so again.

Sincerely,

Kitty Ratcliffe
Executive Vice President
New Orleans CVB

And on Behalf of Stephen Perry, President, Donna Karl, Vice President Client Relations and the entire staff of the CVB.