Oil Spill Clean Up and Recovery News
5/28/10 - Obama Visits Gulf Coast And Doesn't Take It Seriously... Again
Obama visited Grand Isle today and was briefed on the oil spill recovery and cleanup progress. What can we take away from the President's visit? "We are on our own." The President has neglected to show any sincererity towards the oil spill crisis nor applied any real effort towards fixing it. Maybe if the oil were leaking all over the capital or engulfing the Phillipenes it would be a different story. Guess we'll never know...
5/28/10 - Louisiana will launch oil spill-related ad campaign to promote tourism in the state
By Ed Anderson, The Times-Picayune
May 28, 2010, 4:44PM
BATON ROUGE -- The state will launch a special summertime national ad campaign to let the public know that the BP oil spill has not paralyzed the state or shut down key tourist attractions, Louisiana's chief tourism officer said Friday.
Pam Breaux, secretary of the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, told members of the Senate Finance Committee that a recent survey commissioned by her office shows that 23 percent of tourists who had booked trips to the state have cancelled or delayed them because of the spill.
"This is directly attributable to the oil spill," Breaux told lawmakers. "We have to combat it with aggressive marketing."
Breaux said she will use part of a $15 million grant from the oil company to launch the national ad campaign.
She said she will have details on the campaign late next week. Breaux said the cost of the possible loss of tourism cannot be calculated now.
Breaux said about $15,000 of the BP grant will be used to pay for a national study of the perception of potential visitors to the state.
She said 23 percent of the 1,000 individuals polled said they intended to visit the state. Of that approximately 230 tourists, she said, the study showed that 26 percent "are actively cancelling or postponing" their trips because of the oil spill.
"This is a study that is a bit alarming," Breaux said. "There is a perception that the oil spill is affecting everything."
Her comments came in response to a question from Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, about the affect the spill has had on tourism beyond the charter fishing industry.
Breaux told senators, who are reviewing her office's budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, that she will continue to monitor the cancellations and other effects on tourism, by doing follow-up surveys every two to four weeks.
She said she does not fault the media's coverage of the Gulf disaster but said it has taken a toll on the tourism efforts that hopefully can be overcome by the special ad campaign.
She said the BP grant allows the tourism agency to spend the $15 million "as we see fit."
Breaux told LaFleur that the proposed ad campaign will be similar to the one the state staged to overcome perceptions years after Hurricane Katrina that New Orleans and south Louisiana was still under water.