Louisiana to Distribute $30M Oil Spill Tourism Grant

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Louisiana will divide a $30 million BP grant for tourism marketing among all of the state’s parishes and will use a small slice to help fund an out-of-state spring tourism ad campaign sought by Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne.

Dardenne, who oversees Louisiana’s tourism department, outlined the spending plans on Mar. 9, a week after Louisiana received its first $5 million payment of the grant designed to counter negative perception after the Gulf oil spill.

Tourism is a $9.3 billion industry in Louisiana.

A recent study conducted for the lieutenant governor’s office projected the state’s leisure tourism industry took as much as a $700 million hit since the oil rig explosion in April, Dardenne said. Some hotels and restaurants made up a portion of their losses with the business of oil spill response workers, but that’s since dried up since the leaking oil well was capped.

Oil giant BP PLC gave Louisiana $15 million shortly after the spill to help with tourism efforts. That has been spent, and the $30 million is a second grant to be paid out over 18 months.

“Long-term, do I think it’s enough? No,” Dardenne said.

Under the second grant, New Orleans will get $6 million, and six of the remaining hardest-hit parishes will get more than $2 million each. The remaining parishes will get portions ranging from $2,500 for Tensas Parish in northeast Louisiana to $500,000 for Cameron Parish in coastal southwest Louisiana.

The smallest amounts will be paid in lump sums, while some parishes with larger allocations will get their money in installments.

Dardenne’s predecessor, Scott Angelle, decided how to divvy up the cash and signed the agreement with BP three days before Dardenne took office in November.

But Dardenne will oversee the spending, his office will review the parish plans and he’ll try to keep the individual tourism campaigns aligned with the state’s new advertising message, “Louisiana: Pick Your Passion.”

“We feel like we can stretch these dollars by collaborating,” Dardenne said. “We’re going to try to have as consistent a message as we can.”

The state tourism department will receive $6.5 million, and the first $1 million will be steered to help pay for a $3 million tourism campaign Dardenne is launching within the next few weeks to market Louisiana to potential visitors for the summer traveling season.

“We have to seize the moment right now and get the message out this spring and summer,” he said.

Dardenne and the Jindal administration had disagreed about the size and the spending plans for the tourism campaign, and Dardenne got $1 million less for the marketing effort than he wanted.