New Orleans Company to Offer Disaster Tours

[DFWdem]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051215/ap_on_re_us/katrina_disaster_tour

For $35 per person — $28 for children — a New Orleans company is offering bus tours of some of the city's most misery-stricken spots, including the Superdome, the Convention Center and neighborhoods ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Residents disagree over whether the tours are crass and morbid exploitation, or a good way to help people grasp the enormity of the disaster and keep public attention focused on New Orleans' plight.

The buses will start at the edge of the French Quarter, then drive past the Superdome and Convention Center, where thousands suffered in the heat for days without food or water. The tour also may include the destroyed marina and neighborhoods like the flooded Lakefront, Gentilly and eastern New Orleans areas.

Company vice president Gary Hoffman said he intends to show "the utmost sensitivity" to those whose homes were destroyed. After all, he said, they include about 60 percent of the company's 65 pre-Katrina employees, including himself.

More at link

I'm of 2 minds on this. New Orleans can certainly use all of the tourist revenue it can get right now, but is this a proper tourist activity? I suppose many of those who decide to take this tour would probably drive themselves around town if the tour wasn't offered, but should we be encouraging people to gawk at the destruction? For the record, I'm going to N.O. and the MS Gulf Coast the first week of the year, and I will drive around N.O.to see the scope of the disaster. I spent many holidays at various relatives' homes throughout the years, and many of those relatives lived in areas that were flooded.

[BOSSHOG]

1. $3.00 per ticket goes toward disaster relief

but where I don't know. I want as much money as possible pouring into New Orleans and this will assist, however, I'm not sold on the motivation. However, I think it should be a mandatory trip for every conservative racist bastard in this country to take a walking tour of the lower ninth ward and then share their hate with a Times Picayune Reporter.

[Julius Civitatus]

2. Only in America...

Seriously. Making a quick buck out of anything is as American as apple pie. Not sure how I feel about the company, although I agree it's TOO SOON to engage in this type of exploitation, given they are still finding rotten corpses and the reconstruction hasn't even started. Crass and tasteless, indeed.

I wonder if they'll offer cocktails and ouderves during the tour of the destruction.

Nevertheless, as I said, making a quick buck is one very American activity. I actually wonder why it took them this long! How come Halliburton didn't create a NOLA Destruction theme park?

:shrug:

[Angry Girl]

3. Aren't they doing something similiar in Brazil?

Taking tourists to the slums and showing them the "colorful life."

As morbid as it sounds, I think they should proceed. NO is going to starve if they wait for the governments to take action and it allows people to see the truth that is no longer being covered so much in the press, which should hopefully open up their pocketbooks.

Where's the money going?

[DFWdem]

4. Where the money is going:

From the article:

The company will give $3 per ticket to Katrina-related charities, he said. The tours will use major thoroughfares only and employ minibuses rather than big tour coaches, Hoffman said. Smaller streets and the Ninth Ward will not be part of the tour because "that would be too intrusive," he said.

Hoffman said he was less than enthusiastic when his wife and tour guides suggested a Katrina tour: "I said, `No. It's morbid. We're not trying to satisfy the desires of people who want to come here for the sake of looking at devastation.'"

But, he said, he came to realize that news coverage cannot fully convey the damage.

"Congressmen and people from outside this area, they only understand it, they only get it, when they see it," Hoffman said. "If we're going to help New Orleans rebuild, we want people who visit New Orleans to see what happened, to see what devastation it's caused." New Orleans resident Christopher Colley agreed with that: "Film and media only go so far."

[Angry Girl]

5. Doh! (I've forgotten how to read) Thanks! nt