The chance that New Orleans could see a modest increase in tourism during the last days of this year’s carnival, still a hope among some hotels and business owners earlier this month, has faded.
Just over a week ago, the city’s biggest hotels expected reservations to reach 60% on the most popular weekend of the season, just before Fat Tuesday.
But outrage across the city at the huge crowds on Bourbon Street in recent weeks, and Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s response to step up enforcement, shut down city bars until Ash Wednesday and restrict access to hangout points. popular, it seems to have deterred anything from last minute tourists from making the trip.
The Monteleone Hotel is decorated for the carnival season in New Orleans, Tuesday, February 2, 2021. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Mavis Early, executive director of the New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association, said on Friday that city hotels expect an occupancy of just 20% to 25% this weekend, on average, compared to almost full occupancy at the end equivalent weekend last year.
That figure includes a broader cross-section of city accommodations than just the stately hotels in the center, but Carnival managers say the numbers are in line with what they are seeing.
Steve Caputo, general manager of Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street, said earlier this month that he expected occupancy to rise above 50% this weekend for the first time since the pandemic. But now it looks like it will fall short.
Now, he said, occupancy rates on Fridays and Saturdays were at 20% and 27%, respectively, and falling sharply thereafter.
New Orleans hotel operators are expecting a modest increase in the number of guests for the final weekend of the carnival season, but with parades canceled …
“Mardi Gras 2021 is a sad story indeed,” said Caputo.
It was a quiet scene on the city streets on Friday, as well as at New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International Airport.
Erin Burns, an airport spokesman, said they are currently forecasting that daily passenger traffic will average 15,500 during Mardi Gras week. This represents an average of around 12,000 per day in the past few months, but it is just over a third of last year’s average of 42,000 passengers per day.
Reference restaurants in the French Quarter, like Brennan’s on Royal Street, also expect a disappointing Mardi Gras.
OpenTable, the restaurant booking app, shows general reservations for New Orleans restaurants last week, about 70% below last year’s levels.
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Ralph Brennan, head of the restaurant group that also includes Red Fish Grill and Napoleon House in the French Quarter, said he opened Brennan’s for brunch on Wednesday and Thursday this week for the first time since the start of the pandemic in anticipation of a Mardi Boost Gras.
“But we didn’t really see any traffic, it was very tame, very calm,” said Brennan. “Normally, on a day like today, we would have the jazz band playing, there would be satellite bars and people would be swinging on the rafters. It is very strange.”
Brennan said he supports city and state security efforts in general, but he agrees with many business owners in the hospitality industry in expressing their frustration over how the measures have been implemented.
“Swinging from the beams” in normal times, before last year’s pandemic at Brennan’s Restaurant on Royal Street in the French Quarter. This year, “it is very tame”, with even tighter restrictions last week, said owner Ralph Brennan.
“I wish they had started applying the regulations earlier and that we didn’t have to do that before Mardi Gras,” he said. “There are a lot of good traders out there and the frustrating thing is that the rules always change with us. You cannot run business every two or three weeks.”
Caputo said the stop-start restrictions have really affected hospitality workers, thousands of whom still remain out of work or with few hours of work.
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“It really hurts all of our team members who will be out of work for the next five days and all the tips they would have given are a big financial loss for them,” he said. “This is the sad part.”
City hall rules have support among residents and some business owners, like Elna Stokes, second-generation owner of Leah’s Pralines on St. Louis Street in the French Quarter.
She said she supports Cantrell’s latest restrictions despite the loss of business this year.
“I am 75 years old and have spent my life working at this store, but I am happy to not see all these people coming this year,” said Stokes. “Everyone suffered because of COVID, but if we want to go back to the ‘good times’, we have to make it safe for people to come here.”