A Special Message From New Orleans

Dear Industry Partners,

I write to you today on behalf of several thousand hospitality companies and our nearly 100,000 person group of colleagues and associates to extend to you our best wishes during these unprecedented times. Welcoming visitors and hosting meetings and conventions are truly a part of our culture. We miss planning and preparing for your meetings, and entertaining your attendees in our world famous restaurants and iconic attractions. Our community, cultural bearers and musicians create an experience so iconic and authentic that memories of our city stay with visitors long after they leave.

While our legendary hospitality will always be at the core of who we are as a city, our efforts now are focused on your safety as we prepare to welcome you, your business partners and attendees back to New Orleans. We are leading the way in preparedness, COVID-19 response, and protocols.  We understand the importance of and will set national execution standards of social distancing, safety and cleanliness. Our hospitality community, city and state have been hard at work implementing new national best practice protocols. This newsletter goes into greater depth on each topic, and an executive summary follows:

• Governor John Bel Edwards signed into law a package of measures that provide for sweeping liability immunity from lawsuits relating to COVID-19. These measures include protection for meeting planners and trade show and convention organizers. The language in the statute specifically provides limitation of liability for those who are engaged in “hosting, promoting, producing or otherwise organizing, planning or owning a tradeshow, convention, meeting, association produced event, corporate event, sporting event, or exhibition of any kind.” We are aware of no broader protection afforded to meeting professionals anywhere in America.
• New Orleans & Company has collected the safety and cleanliness plans from our member partners, and they are all live on our website.
• The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center has achieved GBAC STAR™ accreditation through the Global BioRisk Advisory Council. The program certifies that the facility is implementing the industry’s highest standards of cleaning, disinfection, and infectious disease prevention for infectious agents such as COVID-19 and is the leading standard of prepared facilities.
• We created a new video that shows our hospitality community at work practicing safety and cleanliness measures.

There is much more included in the newsletter. I hope you find the information informative, helpful and encouraging as to what is possible. We miss seeing you, and hosting your events, and we look forward to seeing you in New Orleans soon.

All the best,

Stephen Perry
President and CEO
New Orleans & Company