New Orleans Buzzing with Jazz Fest Fans!

This is certainly a prosperous year for tourism business in New Orleans and now coming will be another enormous shot in the next two weeks in form of the Jazz Fest at the Fair Grounds.

Popularly known as Jazz Fest, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is going to bring real huge crowds and obviously area’s hotels are going to be fully packed. It is interesting to know the view of hotel owners of New Orleans about the Jazz Fest.

According to hotel owners, 97 to 98 per cent occupancy is big. New Orleans hotels are packed with that number on Friday and Saturday, keeping pace with last year, when around 400,000 Jazz fans had hit the Fair Grounds. Sunday is still better than last year when there is 85% occupancy, which is about 7 percent more than first Sunday of the last year.

Week days’ hotel occupancy is going good too as plenty of people will be staying in the New Orleans for both weekends. It is estimated that most of the fans will stay for one weekend and will be tempted to stay for the next weekend too, probably until the Wednesday after the second weekend. It is clear that many of them are eager to experience the town’s ambience and culture when the city is not buzzing with 500,000 tourists. The city will become more charming to them when there will be less tourists around and also they will find it easy to get reservations.

Jazz Fest

Jazz Fest is held annually showcasing the culture and music of New Orleans and Louisiana. It is held for two weekends, i.e. the last weekend of April (from Friday to Sunday) and the first weekend of May (from Thursday to Sunday). It also includes the days before and after the Festival which are marked with a number of shows at unaffiliated nightclubs in New Orleans on Festival weekends. As per the official website of Jazz Fest, the Festival celebrates the original culture and music of New Orleans and Louisiana, therefore the music embraces every style linked with the city and the state, viz. blues, gospel music, R&B, Cajun music, Afro-Caribbean, zydeco, Latin, rock, rap, folk music, country music, bluegrass and everything else in between, and obviously, a lot of jazz, both traditional and contemporary.

Jazz Fest is the largest festival of music after Mardi Gras, especially for foreign tourists and more than eight million tourists visit New Orleans per year for Jazz Fest.

The culture is depicted in form of local foods and crafts. There are over seventy food booths selling distinct foods, like Mango Freeze, conchon de lait sandwich, crawfish beignets, boiled crawfish, crawfish Monica, alligator sausage, po’boy and many other delicacies.

Second Weekend Expected to be Budget-friendly

A survey conducted by a website observes that hotels in New Orleans on an average have raised their charges by 79% for this weekend compared to the usual charges. However the survey also points out that the second weekend will be more budget-friendly for the festival fans.

It is also estimated that the New Orleans hotels will remain busy till August because of plenty of new conventions; otherwise normally it is slack season for the city.