New Orleans tourism growing at unprecedented levels

Tourism continues to reach unprecedented heights in the city of New Orleans. That's leading to increased hotel tax collections, which fund the Caesar's Superdome and Smoothie King Center.

Officials at the venues say those figures will grow even more this month.

"We're anticipating that October will be a very good month for us," ASM Global vice president Doug Thorton said during a recent meeting of the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District. "The hotel tax collections continue to overperform. We're about $600,000 above pace (from) this time last year."

"We're up nearly 20 percent year-over-year," ASM general manager Evan Holmes added, referencing July's hotel tax collections. "They're really consistent with data we received from New Orleans & Co., which is highlighted (by) what should be a pretty favorable year-over-year trend in the third calendar quarter of the year here, which is typically a pretty slow period."

Thorton credits recent conventions, concerts, and sporting events, particularly the Saints' home game against the Philadelphia Eagles, to helping boost hotel tax collections beyond last year's totals. He and Holmes expect several major upcoming events to provide more boosts to the local economy.

"Hopefully we'll see a pretty significant uptick here at the end of October with the Taylor Swift influx of visitors," Thorton said.

"We're optimistic we'll see continued positive comps year-over-year, and then, of course, as we all know, we've got the strong event calendar and the high-profile events in the Taylor Swift concerts and the Super Bowl coming," Holmes added.