Plan Your Meetings

Update on Gulf Coast properties and cancellation policies

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Several hotel chains have waived cancellation fees for meetings scheduled in New Orleans.

According to Lodging Econometrics, Inc., 160 Louisiana hotels (28,481 rooms) and 33 Alabama hotels (3,650 rooms) currently are closed. In Mississippi, 93 hotels with a total of 13,701 rooms are closed. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has declared the following counties Federal Disaster Areas: Baldwin and Mobile (Ala.); Hancock, Harrison and Jackson (Miss.); Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, Saint Bernard, Saint Charles, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Tammany and Lafourche (La.). At the time of the hurricane, a total of 32 new hotel projects with 5,551 rooms were being developed in these three states: 15 in Louisiana, five in Mississippi and 12 in Alabama.

All meetings and events scheduled for New Orleans before Jan. 1, 2006 have been cancelled. All citywide meetings in New Orleans have been cancelled through March 31, 2006, when the convention center is expected to reopen, but the CVB is expecting small meetings and mid-sized meetings to continue as planned after Jan. 1. For area updates and information on rescheduling meetings, visit the Convention Industry Council’s Katrina update page.