On January 1, New Orleans & Company will have a new president and CEO. Walt Leger III succeeds Stephen Perry after 20 years in office. They want the marketing organization to take a more consumer-centric approach and take more risks with new technologies.
A lawyer by profession, he served 12 years in the Louisiana House of Representatives, six of which were as speaker pro tempore. In the year He joined New Orleans & Company in 2019 as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Strategy. The board named Perry as his successor last December.
In this conversation with Skift, Ledger talks about New Orleans' rebuilding, consumer marketing strategy, the city's relationship with international markets, why his legislative prowess is important in the current political climate, and how New Orleans can resist the next. Katrina's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Skift : I was actually in New Orleans in February 2020 when Mardi Gras came to an end. I remember hearing covid like the flu when I left. The next thing you know, the world is ending. What happened to New Orleans after I left?
Walt Leger III: Covid was devastating. To make matters worse, the news initially claimed that New Orleans and Mardi Gras were a very popular event that actually started. Articles like this put us in a more difficult situation. In his development, he went everywhere. It happened to everyone.
In this sector, at the height of Covid, we have increased the number of workers from 100,000 to less than 50,000, and more than 50 percent of them are unemployed. We lost 80 percent of our revenue over a period of time, which is a huge drop. In the year In 2019, we spent nearly $10 billion in direct visitors and tourism-related spending. In the year By 2020, that figure had dropped to $2.5 billion, so that was impressive. Some recovery started in 2021. Of course, we had problems with comparisons and other changes from time to time.
Skift: How is the recovery process going?
For Ger : A vacation paved the way to recovery. I think that the number of visitors at the end of the year will be slightly less than in 2019, but not much and may be close to what it was before the epidemic.
I think employment has grown to 75,000 people and that may be the last time I see it. I think a lot of companies have adjusted to hiring less because hiring wasn't what it was when we came out of the pandemic.
We had the last four March Madness. We had an unusually large conference with American Cancer Research and the Human Resources Association. In fact, our conference schedule this year is probably the strongest in ten years and it has been a very positive year for us in terms of meetings and conferences.
Skift : You're replacing someone who's been there for 20 years. How do you take things in a different direction?
To Ger : We will continue to sell our most important assets, our people and our great city. But how do we do it? I think it's changing all the time. Therefore, our goal is to be stronger than in the past in providing the city's public relations support and third-party support to the city. Because I feel it tells a more powerful story that translates to people than traditional or traditional business marketing.
I think people are consuming content in ways that continue to evolve and also include a phone, computer, iPad or other digital device, so our creative teams try to focus on creating fresh and new content at a high level. Instead of trying to run traditional brand ads on linear TV, we're doing more, though often focusing on social media work and trying to keep up with new trends in the digital space. For example, NFTS and Web 3.0, and try to monetize these things.
For example, one of the things we've done this year that I'm most proud of is developing a great brand campaign called Plus One. New Orleans is hosting the largest gala dinner in the world and we invite you to join us. It's basically a bunch of weirdos enjoying each other's company around a dinner table in New Orleans. But what we did was shoot in VR, so we added an eight-minute VR element. It will also give you more information about some of these people and workers, this new technology is coming. The reason we want to do this is to draw attention to the innovation that is happening in our city.
Skift: What major strategic changes are you planning?
Leisure: Long-term international travel sold by travel professionals, travel agents and people who arrange travel on behalf of foreign visitors. I think with the breadth of technology today, we can create some demand for more direct marketing globally and trying to work more with global influencers and other social media opportunities to promote our direction. I think in the past we should have focused our efforts on specific areas where we could get the highest return on investment (ROI). I think we can experiment a bit more with what we have around consumers globally and create a new dynamic.
One of the things you can imagine is New Orleans, the home of jazz, which continues to produce world-renowned jazz musicians and our artists constantly travel the world creating music in this genre. . And then, you know, trying to work closely with them, their social media presence in their absence and let them promote us and themselves to increase that.
And letting people know what New Orleans is is definitely not on every international traveler's bucket list, but there are plenty of people who do, and we know many of them do it through music. So we work hard to focus on music, especially on an international level. For example, we know that the Japanese are big fans and admirers of jazz. So we had a lot of success in Japan before the outbreak because people really wanted to be here and experience it in real life. It's not as fast as we would like because Asia is still fighting. But with international travel, I'm sure we'll be back and renewing our efforts, and I hope we'll identify some of the best jazz clubs in the world and find direct ways to work with them. , talk to your customers and specific cities and countries and create a gift. Business, competition, is another way to encourage people to get direct experience. And I think it would be an interesting international challenge to realize the love people have for our city and try to use it, but I think it's very possible and worth trying.
Skift : Everyone knows New Orleans in America, but I didn't know it had an international reputation as a tourist destination outside of French-speaking countries.
Leger: Yeah, I mean we'll build on that. In fact, we have to go back to where it was. In 2019, we were visited by nearly 1 million foreign guests. New Orleans is a city most foreign visitors visit for the second time, not the first. They went to New York on their first tour. We understand this.
There are many people who have strong ties to our city. Mostly, like I said, people from Canada. Many Louisiana natives, often called Cajuns, originally came from Canada, and many are of French, but Canadian, descent. That is why our relationship with Canada is so strong. It's no surprise that Canada and Mexico are our biggest partners here in North America.
But England is watching closely. France also participated. Germany is involved in this, and Australia is becoming an increasingly important partner for us, from an international point of view, a little further, but before the epidemic, it became a very strong bond. We will try to answer this in the future. We had the longest international partnership with the representatives of each of the countries I mentioned above, and now we are rebuilding them because international travel takes a lot of time.
I serve on the Executive Committee of the American Travel Association and one of our main goals is to try to solve some of the problems with visa delays and wait times. So 300-400 days to do the visa interview now. I mean it just reduces international travel, the pandemic, the recovery from the pandemic.
A good example: In December for physicians, we have an important event for the American Society of Hematology. The fact that Air France offers two direct flights from Paris to bring together the participants of this meeting is an important event both domestically and internationally. Because of this, New Orleans is trying to use an empty plane on the way back at the same time. At the end of the year, good doctors, especially from France, flock here for hematology conferences. International travel is one of those things that slowly dawns on you. So we will continue to work hard at the US Travel Service level to resolve some of these visa issues because we need to restart international travel.
Skift : Worked as a legislator for 12 years. How will your legislative experience be useful in your new role?
Lejar: One of the most difficult things in the country at the moment is that there are political issues affecting the decision-making process of the meeting. Was it a matter of social justice or was the Dobbs decision Roe v. which repealed the USA. Wade, medical groups and others are making decisions based on many political concerns. So being able to talk about these things is definitely a plus and I think it's good to be able to talk about it and understand the interaction between politics and business because they are interconnected.
I'm proud to say that when hematologists expressed some concern about abortion laws in Louisiana, we were able to get their leaders to come to our state, sit down with me and the governor, talk about it, and call them. for a change. And that's what they want.
They told us that if they decide not to continue with our meeting, they have no chance to dive into public policy and try to improve the issue. And I think we've done what we promised to try to create a voice and a way for you to advocate for the change that you want.
The beauty of travel in general, because ultimately travel is about bringing people together, breaking down barriers, helping people understand each other better, meet other communities and learn from each other.
That's why I hate that in today's environment there are people who want to boycott a place or a city because of politics. I mean, I'm one of those people who think it's much better to go and try to make a difference than to leave because you don't agree with them. I understand the thought process and want to make an impact and send a message. I think there is a stronger way to be proactive in your relationship and not react to it.
And I'm happy to continue the conversation and try to help people find ways to make their voices heard because that's my passion, to make a difference and keep our city very safe. The negativity that can come from things outside of our control.
Skift: Given the impact of Katrina and the state of the city, how prepared is it for the future of hurricanes and climate change-related disasters?
Leger: We don't have to go that far to remember what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans in 2005, I mean, it was a long time ago, but it's still fresh in people's minds. These pictures aren't going anywhere. Well, I'm very proud of his response to Hurricane Katrina. The state of Louisiana has developed a Sustainable Coast Plan that calls for a $50 billion investment over 50 years to restore the coast and protect and preserve our existing coastline.
Now, as you know, we are in a race for sea level rise and other things that affect it. But we have been running this program for the last few years, and it is the best program of its kind in the country and probably in the world, because it is not a political process. This is a scientifically based process. But after Hurricane Katrina, the US federal government, in cooperation with the state, spent $16 billion to build a large flood wall, and then another $40-50 billion for flood protection and hurricane risk reduction structures in our nation's cities. So last year we had Hurricane Ida, the equivalent of Katrina, and nine days later we had a conference in New Orleans.
The hurricane mitigation system installed here has worked, so we're sure the communities around us were hit hard last year. And I don't want to belittle it in any way because our society as a whole continues to be hit by the same storm. But the risk mitigation system that is designed, implemented and developed. This is what he did last year. This shows that we are working towards a positive solution to this problem.
