Having worked with Toronto’s own Tourism group post-SARS in ’03-‘04, my interest was piqued when I read about New Orleans online efforts to lure visitors back to their city after Katrina.
24nola.com is a microsite where you can plan your itinerary for seeing the city. The idea is good. The execution needs work.
I like the hour-by-hour planner that let’s you sketch out a 24 hour plan for seeing the city. The event descriptions give you a great snapshot of what your options are – they’re concise but tantalizing (would have really come to life in video though…). I also like that users can submit other activities to be included in the planner (although they are not updated real time).
It’s a shame they didn’t take the idea further, though. There are things on the menu for 11 am that I would have like to drop into my itinerary for the afternoon (who needs a chocolate fix at 11 am?) and I would have loved to have the whole day mapped out for me so I knew exactly how to get from one event to another.
They also overlooked a great opportunity to show me how the city has rebuilt itself. The reality is that New Orleans is still not high on my travel consideration list, and it will take some hard selling and education before I’ll likely change my mind….
Victoria Thorpe
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threeminds: I was part of the team that brought the 24nola.com program to life. Agree with your assessment. A sad truth is that the city is still reeling from an unprecedented event, and despite what is being reported, funds of any sort are more scarce than you could imagine. This was an effort to show those appreciative of our culture that we are still alive — with a shoestring budget, some imagination and a pending summer tourism season slowdown that threatened to cripple our beloved city.
Perhaps Organic would be interested in pro bono work?