New Orleans Welcomed 8.3 Million Visitors in 2010

eTurboNews: New Orleans' tourism industry has achieved a major milestone, welcoming 8.3 million visitors in 2010, a 10.7 percent increase over 2009, and the first time to reach 8 million visitors since Katrina. Those 8.3 million visitors spent $5.3 billion, a $1.1 billion increase over 2009 and the highest spending in the city's history, according to a study released today.

The 2010 New Orleans Area Visitor Profile survey is conducted by the University of New Orleans (UNO) Hospitality Research Center for New Orleans destination marketing partners.

Key findings include:

- Visitation increased by 800,000 (10.7 percent) from 7.5 million people in 2009 to 8.3 million in 2010

- Visitor expenditures increased by $1.1 billion (23.6 percent) in 2009 to $5.3 billion in 2010

- Vacation/pleasure visitors spent an average of $569 per trip or $142 per day

- 77.7 percent of visitors surveyed were in New Orleans for vacation/pleasure

- 22.3 percent of visitors surveyed were in New Orleans for a convention, association, trade show, corporate meeting or general business travel

- 47.9 percent of business travelers extended their stay for pleasure for an average of 2.1 days

- The number of visitors age 25-34, a demographic New Orleans began targeting more aggressively in 2010, saw an increase from 15.4 percent in 2009 to 18.4 percent in 2010

Tourism is New Orleans' most important economic engine, employing 70,000 people and pumping $5 billion in new capital into the city each year, more than any other business sector. Domestic and international visitors spent $9.3 billion in the state of Louisiana in 2010.

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S. Florida Tourism Dedicates Month to Romance

Miami Herald: South Florida tourism officials are saying "I do" to romance. In an effort to grab a bigger chunk of the nation's $74 billion wedding industry, visitors bureaus are rolling out campaigns to boost the area's reputation as a destination for popping the question, tying the knot and getting away post-nuptials.

The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau is launching a new nearly $500,000 effort with bridal behemoth The Knot to promote the area to the betrothed, kicking off in the next couple weeks and culminating with Miami Romance Month in June.

"You think about the whole life cycle of the process of getting married," said the bureau's executive vice president-chief marketing officer, Rolando Aedo. There's the proposal, bachelor and bachelorette party, wedding or commitment ceremony, honeymoon and eventual anniversary and vow renewal. "We'd like them to come to Miami over and over."

Miami Romance Month will include deals from hotels, restaurants, attractions, bridal shops and other wedding vendors throughout Miami-Dade, where 21,501 marriage licenses were granted last year. "Every wedding is another bride," said Jacqueline Volkart, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove, which will participate. "We create guests for life usually."

The tourism bureau - which boasts beaches as well as nontraditional venues like the new Herzog & de Meuron-designed parking garage on South Beach- is working now to encourage all interested parties to come up with romance-themed deals in June. Special offers are likely to catch brides' attention, said Carley Roney, co-founder of wedding planning site TheKnot.com. "They can only go so over budget," she said. "And they really have big wedding visions."

"Miami has a lot of sex appeal to people. They know it's a luxurious city, they know it's a fun city, they know there is great travel to do there," she said. "But I don't think people really know there are amazing wedding professionals there as well, so it could be the all-in-one package."

Although Miami-Dade will observe Miami Romance Month for only one month out of the year, Aedo said the push to bring more weddings-and-romance business to the area - and possibly lure customers away from the Caribbean -will last year-round.

Already an international wedding destination for its concentration of wedding-oriented shops and services, Coral Gables is playing a heavy role in the promotion. The final phase of "Marry Me in Miami" will unfold in a challenge between five couples on a closed-down Miracle Mile on June 22. The Biltmore and other Gables vendors are donating the grand prize wedding.

Tourism officials are hoping that mix of tropical destinations and relative bargains will help their still-recovering industry emerge from the doldrums of the last couple years. Roney said that while more than a third of South Florida brides said their plans were affected by the economy, the weddings still marched on.

"No matter what happens in the economy, the world keeps getting married," she said. "I can see why the visitors bureau says 'Yes, it's great to have all the tourists. But I like the tourists that come and bring 105 guests.' It's a smart investment for an area to say we want more weddings."

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Columbia's Ticuna Indians Tell Tourists to Stay Away

Daily Mail: A village deep in the Columbian Amazon, inhabited by indigenous people, has banned tourists as they are sick of being cooed over.

Near to the Amazon River lies Nazareth, a curious place to the outside world where they uphold age-old jungle traditions and have wonderful fauna and flora - some of the most varied on the planet.

Last year 35,000 tourists visited the region to swing with the monkeys, swim with the famed pink dolphins that frolic in the Amazon waters or to fish for piranhas. Now, however, tourists wanting to visit Nazareth, where Ticuna Indians - one of the most endangered communities in the world - make up 80 per cent of the population, will be greeted by guards armed with their traditional sticks, ready to deter unwelcome tourists.

The village, which is found by a 20-minute boat trip from the town of Leticia, has supposedly been off-limits to visitors for the past two years - but tourists have still come. Elders say the indigenous people do not benefit from the growth in tourism across the region - it is the travel companies who are coining in the profits.

If we don't preserve (our culture), in the next 30 years it will all be finished. United Nations believe that there are only about 30,000 Ticuna people remaining and they are fearful of seeing their culture eroded by prying visitors.

Local Grimaldo Ramos said: 'We had lots of problems. People came, left their rubbish behind, garbage bags, plastic bottles. 'Tourists come and shove a camera in our faces,' he said. 'Imagine if you were sitting in your home and strangers came in and started taking photos of you. You wouldn't like it."

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