PHOTO: The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is one of the city’s top draws.

As the Festival Capital of the World, New Orleans features dozens of events that celebrate its one-of-a-kind food, music and multicultural heritage all year long. Simply put, celebration is at the core of the New Orleans experience. For clients who want an authentic taste of the city, agents should recommend that they join in one of the Big Easy’s eclectic array of festivals.

Although New Orleans is arguably best known for Mardi Gras, some travelers may not be aware that it offers a vibrant array of festivals year-round celebrating the city’s food, culture, music and film. Festivals are extremely important not only to the economy of the city but also to the locals, who celebrate the rich culture of their hometown practically every weekend.

Popular with Visitors

“Most of our festivals were created solely for the local residents, but as more and more visitors wanted to go where the locals go, the events became extremely popular with visitors,” says Kim Priez, vice president of tourism for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The French Quarter Festival is an excellent example. It was created to thank the French Quarter residents for their patience and assistance during a long French Quarter restoration period. “It has grown from a few thousand to over 500,000 people a year,” says Priez, adding that New Orleans’ “variety of events and festivals continues to grow, with more and more unique festivals being planned every year.”

Since 80 percent of the Big Easy festivals are free, your clients will enjoy an affordable and exciting trip that is uniquely New Orleans.

“One tip that we like to tell our agents is that if a client is interested in coming to New Orleans, before booking the dates agents should really take a look at what’s happening,” says Priez.

The good news for travel agents is that festivals provide something new and different to sell, since there is a festival theme to appeal to a wide range of prospective travelers.

“Hotel rooms are available — and at rates that make it attractive for agents to make good commissions,” says Priez, adding that the city’s renowned cuisine is 20 percent less expensive than that of most major cities and is an attraction of its own.

New Orleans is thriving, which is especially remarkable considering what it endured in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. “New Orleans has overcome challenges, including substantial post-Katrina damage to the city’s infrastructure and reputation, as well as a national recession, restrictions in corporate and meetings travel and the BP oil spill,” notes Priez.

Despite those challenges, New Orleans is attracting more and more visitors every year. The number of annual visitors sharply increased from 3.7 million in 2006 to 9.1 million in 2012, with the highest visitor spending in city history. Last year New Orleans drew more than 9 million with an economic spend exceeding $6.5 million — a record for the city.

“Our unique destination has won numerous awards thus far this year,” says Priez. Fodor’s included New Orleans in its Top 25 Places to Go in 2013 list, ABC Travel Guides for Kids placed New Orleans in its list of Top Seven U.S. Family Destinations for 2013, and Southern Living named New Orleans as one of the “Tastiest Towns in the South” for the second year in a row. TripAdvisor named New Orleans one of the Top Travelers’ Choice Destinations in the U.S. and Canada, based on millions of traveler reviews and opinions.

Post Katrina Growth

There’s no denying that the visitor experience is vastly improved over what it was prior to Katrina, says Priez. Five hundred restaurants have been added since 2005, as well as new cultural attractions and $336 million of improvements to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

In the past eight years, more than $90 million has been spent to improve the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, leading to the opening of the renovated Great Hall in January 2013. After closing post-Katrina, the Hyatt Regency New Orleans reopened in October 2011 following a $275 million redesign and revitalization.

Furthermore, cruise lines are investing in New Orleans with additional and larger ships. Carnival Cruise Lines’ largest and newest class of ships began sailing from the Port of New Orleans this year. Carnival will deploy the newly renovated Carnival Sunshine to New Orleans on Nov. 18, and the Carnival Dream began sailing out of New Orleans in April. The Carnival Elation will continue to sail year-round out of New Orleans. Carnival is the only cruise line to operate two year-round ships from New Orleans and will carry more than 400,000 guests annually from the Port of New Orleans.

Tools for Travel Agents

New Orleans also helps itself by making it easy for travel agents to sell the Big Easy, with a special website for agents, an inside salesperson dedicated to helping agents and to informing them about fam trips.

“Our website, NewOrleans4Agents.com, is an excellent tool for agents,” says Priez. “It offers agents courses to broaden their knowledge of the city and ways they can profit from selling New Orleans.”

Leslie Straughan serves as the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau’s dedicated salesperson for travel agents. She can assist with any questions that the agents may have. She can be reached at lstraughan@neworleanscvb.com and 504-566-5018.

New Orleans, Priez adds, also offers a fam program that enables agents to travel to the city with their families and obtain deeply discounted agent rates on attractions and activities. Agents will find more information about fams by visiting NewOrleansCVB.com/fam14.