NOLADrinks Show – 12-10-18 – Tourism and Culture in New Orleans

On this week’s edition of The NOLADrinks Show with Bryan Dias, we talk about the tourism industry in New Orleans. We discuss its importance to the economy and culture and how the foundation of the city’s tourism is based, in large part, on the hospitality and music industries. We talk with Jeremy Cooker of the New Orleans Tourism and Marketing Corporation, Erica Dudas of the New Orleans Musician’s Clinic, and Ethan Ellestad of the Music and Cultural Coalition of New Orleans.

Pictured above from left – Bryan Dias of The NOLADrinks Show, Ethan Ellestad of the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans, Jeremy Cooker of the New Orleans and Tourism Marketing Corporation, and Erica Dudas of the New Orleans Musician’s Clinic at Sylvain in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

NOLADrinks Show – 12-10-18 – Tourism and Culture in New Orleans

We start things off letting you know about this week’s show. We also talk about our upcoming “French Quarter Fest Series.” We’ll be taping our first round of interviews this Saturday at Louisiana Music Factory. See more here.

Then, we head over to Sylvain (thanks to them!) for our featured interview. We welcome Jeremy Cooker, VP of Marketing and Special Projects for the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation (NOTMC), Erica Dudas, Managing Director of the New Orleans Musician’s Clinic and Assistance Foundation (NOMC), and Ethan Ellestad, Executive Director of the Music and Cultural Coalition of New Orleans (MaCCNO).

This is the first of an ongoing series of conversations where we discuss the tourism industry and its importance to the culture and economy of New Orleans. We’re a tourism-driven economy here in NOLA and the bedrock of that economy is based, largely, on the hospitality and music industries. These two industries and communities share many similarities, realities, and challenges.

Here, we discuss the overall concepts and ideas connected to the above including the value of the tourism economy to the city, the need to support these communities in ways that may not be obvious to all (i.e. healthcare), and much more. We discuss each organization and what they do to achieve this work. We also talk about how they connect with stakeholders, how they seek to respect local culture and individuals with their programs, and touch on current initiatives on which they are working (sometimes in collaboration with each other) to meet these ends.

If you’re a resident of the area, a fan and visitor of the city, or are interested in some of the realities of cultural tourism, you will want to hear this chat. As we move forward, we have more shows connected to these topics and themes. Stay tuned…

Jeremy, Erica, and Ethan stick around for our podcast-only portion of the show – “Another Shot with NOLADrinks” – where we go deeper into these issues. We close things out with our “Parting Shot” talking about sweet wine (not what you may think)!

You can subscribe to, stream, and download The NOLADrinks Show podcast using the links and player at the top of this post. The map below shows the location of Sylvain. Thanks to them for hosting!

Cheers, You All!

~ Bryan