An articleon nola.com recently touted the New Orleans Wine and Food Experience, held on Memorial Day weekend, as a boon not just for tourism, but also for meetings.
Summer can be slow in the Big Easy, which is why the five-day event featuring wine tastings and upscale dinners, originally held in July, was created to begin with. Moving it to a slightly more hospitable date, weather-wise, has brought more tourists the past couple of years, and, says the article, "The New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau Inc. has started using the event to try to persuade meeting planners to book their meetings here. The bureau has invited 36 meeting planners who represent industry associations and corporate meeting groups to town this weekend to participate in the Wine and Food Experience and see hotels and convention facilities." It worked last year, when the foodie fam resulted in booked meetings from Jazzercise Inc., McKesson Corp., and Underwater Intervention, which is the combined annual conference of the Association of Diving Contractors International and the Marine Technology Society.
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