New Orleans Voted 'Best Domestic Business City' by Global Traveler Readers

/PRNewswire/ -- New Orleans has been selected as the "Best Domestic Business City" by Global Traveler Magazine and 31,457 of the publication's surveyed travelers. Results for this prestigious annual survey were published in the magazine's December 2008 issue.

Global Traveler readers are frequent premium travelers who average 33 round-trip flights a year, with 96 percent traveling in first- or business-class regularly.

"This is a great honor for New Orleans because it shows that the world is taking notice of the city's entrepreneurial opportunities and continued growth as a business destination," said Stephen Perry, president and CEO of the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB). "In the past few years, more than 150 new restaurants have opened in New Orleans, major hotel brands are investing in our city with renovations and upgrades and new real estate developments are happening year-round. I see a great future for the New Orleans business community."

Since 2005, New Orleans has added approximately 170 restaurants to its list, totaling 979 dine-in restaurants in the metropolitan area. Also, in the past three years hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the hotel industry to refurbish, re-develop and upgrade new and existing properties. Many of the 208 metropolitan area hotels are currently undergoing multi-million dollar renovations including, the Hilton Riverside Hotel, the Hyatt, the Baronne Plaza Hotel and the Waldorf= Astoria(R) is spending $135 million to revive the former Fairmont into The Roosevelt.

Real estate development is also thriving in New Orleans. Seventy million dollars was spent to refurbish the former Krauss Department Store into the 1201 Canal Condominium Development, a 233-unit luxury project on Canal Street and recently plans were approved to convert the iconic Blue Plate mayonnaise plant into apartments.

The survey was conducted from January 1-August 31, 2008, with open-ended questions for the best in 55 categories of business and luxury travel and demographic data. The survey was conducted in Global Traveler Magazine as an insert to subscribers, as a direct-mail questionnaire, online and e-mailed during the survey period. Only the questionnaires with more than 50 percent of answers completed were counted and employees of the magazine or individuals associated with the travel industry were not included.

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