It’s New Orleans: Out to Lunch

Hosted ByPeter Ricchiuti

Tulane University A.B. Freeman School of Business finance professor Peter Ricchiuti holds court over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. Peter's lunch guests are New Orleans business people, from startups to CEO's, from artists to tech entrepreneurs, musicians to movers-and-shakers. New Orleans is on everybody's list as a great place to party but it's also on many lists of the best place to start a business. Peter's deeply knowledgable and equally levity-laden approach to business conversation neatly makese sense of the Crescent City's contradictions.

Saints! Pelicans! Tourists! – Out to Lunch – It’s New Orleans

New Orleans is one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. There is no specific reason – there’s no amusement park or beach – but like other great cities – Paris, Manhattan – people come here to spend time just living like we do.

bourbon street

Ironically, we herd them into the French Quarter and down Bourbon Street which locals mostly avoid, put them on buggy rides, ghost tours and swamp tours that locals never go on, and they eat in restaurants that most of us can only afford on special occasions. Tourists go home declaring New Orleans is a wonderful city but they could never live here ‘cause they’d put on a hundred pounds and be drunk every night.

Making that experience the greatest week ever for around 9 million tourists a year is not the only task of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, but it does drag a good portion of the 6 billion dollars in annual hospitality spending into the local economy.

mark romig

The President and CEO of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation is Mark Romig. Mark joins Peter on this episode of Out to Lunch from Commander’s Palace

It’s become a mantra these days that you can’t be a truly great American city if you don’t have a professional sports franchise. New Orleans has two – The Saints and The Pelicans. The Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of both The Saints and the Pelicans is Ed Lang. 

 ed lang

On today’s Out to Lunch Peter Ricchiuti talks with Ed Lang and Mark Romig about the three biggest games in town: The Saints, The Pelicans, and The Tourists.

It's Bougie baby
Realtor Tracey Moore