BATON ROUGE -- A major winter storm has derailed Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne's first major tourism promotion trip to New York City, so he will be touting Louisiana's virtues to the national media from Baton Rouge on Thursday. Dardenne's office last week announced that he was going to make a one-day media blitz to New York City on Wednesday,...
BATON ROUGE -- A major winter storm has derailed Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne's first major tourism promotion trip to New York City, so he will be touting Louisiana's virtues to the national media from Baton Rouge on Thursday.
Jay DardenneDardenne's office last week announced that he was going to make a one-day media blitz to New York City on Wednesday, meeting with print reporters and editors and doing a round of television interviews to about 20 cities by satellite from the Big Apple.
But Dardenne said Monday those plans were scrapped when he looked at the snowstorms and harsh winter weather that is expected to snarl travel and force possible shutdowns in the New York area.
He said he will do the satellite interviews from the relative warmth of the State Museum Building in the Capital City.
"I didn't want to run the risk of being stranded up there," said Dardenne, who has to be back in the state Thursday.
Dardenne spokeswoman Cami Dinkel Geisman said that the list of television interviews will be staggered throughout the day Thursday. None is scheduled to last longer than 10 minutes, she said.
The markets are a mix of local TV outlets -- like those in New Orleans and Baton Rouge -- along with relatively smaller areas, like Colorado Springs, Colo., and Kalamazoo, Mich.
They also include large markets such as Boston, San Diego, St. Louis, San Antonio, Philadelphia and Las Vegas, she said.
Dardenne said he will follow up telephone interviews with the magazines -- like Food and Wine -- with "deskside interviews" at a later date.
"My main message will be to talk about seafood safety and the travel opportunities (to the state) in the near term, like for Mardi Gras and our festivals," Dardenne said. "I look forward to touting all of Louisiana's best assets to let people know that our seafood is safe and that numerous adventures await visitors to Louisiana."
Dardennne said he will stress that the state's seafood "is the most tested in the world" and is safe to eat and sell.
He said he hopes to lessen the "false perceptions" left by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last spring in the interviews and the state's proposed $4.2 million spring ad campaign.
A recent study indicated that about 26 percent of the visitors who had booked trips to the state last year canceled or postponed them because of the spill.
It also said that the state is projected to lose almost $300 million in tourism spending through 2013 as a result of the disaster.
Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson@timespicayune.com or 225.342.5810.