New Orleans Gets Decked Out for 300th Anniversary

Three hundred years ago, in Spring of 1718, the French colonized the city of New Orleans, and its unique history has coalesced into a singular experience with French, Spanish and Caribbean influences that is uniquely American.

According to local tourist operators, there is a “growing demand for the New Orleans experience”, and it is reflected in tourist numbers visiting the city.

New Orleans is coming off its 8th-consecutive record-breaking year for tourism, and 2018 is going even better with a city-wide, year-long celebration of everything that makes New Orleans great.

In addition to official three-centennial celebrations like the Fleur De Lis drop, every single festival - and that’s in a city that has a festival every three days on average - has been encouraged to include mentions of the unfolding three-centennial.

This has included visits from foreign dignitaries and even the presentation of artifacts relevant to New Orleans history that had not ever left French or Spanish soil in the past. A city with such a rich history and growing demand for tourism is a city that demands new changes and innovations, and the city is responding to that demand.

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is currently undergoing a billion-dollar construction project that will not only fix infrastructure issues, but will transform the way people enter the city.

The reimagining includes a uniquely New Orleans feel, something that has been noticeably missing from the airport, with new concessions from New Orleans, James Beard Award-winning chefs and live music. Because, wonderfully, New Orleans rarely does anything without great food and music.

The convention center, too, has been an example of a faceless and cultureless feature in the city, known primarily for its vast size. That will also be changing in a major way with a fresh beginning with a phase 1 $60 million project to change the center’s facade. Phase 2 that will add an anchor hotel.

Meanwhile, the hotel inventory in the city is expanding both in terms of quantity and in terms of diversity. World War 2 Museum is opening in the summer of 2019 and will transform the skyline of the city, while the upcoming Hard Rock Hotel and new Higgins Hotel are great examples of the cool, millennial-focused spaces that New Orleans is seeing a massive increase in.

Source: Beam Travel