Marketing New Orleans During the Off Season

¶ … evolution of a festival: Creole Christmas in New Orleans" by Harsha E. Chacko and Jeffrey D. Schaffer

Although ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the "Big Easy" has recovered once again to become the destination of choice for millions of tourists each year, even during the city's off-season in December. To determine how the city achieved this success, this paper provides a summary of the article, "The evolution of a festival: Creole Christmas in New Orleans" (1993) by Harsha E. Chacko and Jeffrey D. Schaffer, including a brief discussion this event, a summary of the author's main argument, and a discussion of what this argument advises concerning the nature of events. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings from this article are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

A brief discussion of the event

This article describes the annual Creole Christmas event held in New Orleans during a 20-day period in December, the city's off-season for tourism. Created in 1986 in an effort to increase tourism levels to the city during the off-season, the event has achieved the organizers' goals of making a positive economic impact on the city and its tourism industry, but, at the time of writing, the authors conclude that Creole Christmas had not yet realized the potential cultural and social benefits that are possible through the conduct of this event.

A summary of the main argument of the article

Recognizing the benefits of staging a city-wide Christmas celebration during the off-season in New Orleans, stakeholders from across the city came together to make this event happen each year, and it have grown in size and scope each year with a minimum of official oversight and funding. To their credit, the event organizers have also been scrupulous in their attention to detail, evaluating the effectiveness of the event's performance each year to identify opportunities for improvement in the future.

A discussion of what this argument tells us about the nature of events

There were an overarching theme of "build it and they will come" in the Chacko and Schaffer article that suggested success for Creole Christmas was a foregone conclusion when in reality the success of the event was largely attributable to the hard work of the organizers and volunteers involved in the initiative. Despite this constraint, some of the more salient findings that emerged from this article included the following:

Use and build a festival around existing heritage and cultural resources that provide an authentic and credible marketing foundation.

A core group of activists, consisting of major stakeholders, must be involved from the outset.

Economic beneficiaries such as the hospitality industry should be prodded to provide financial support.

In-kind donations can be used effectively to promote the event.

The organizer or executive in charge of the festival should be able to acquire and manage volunteers.

After the first year, economic impact studies must be done to show the community the benefits of the festival.