(Citizens for a New Louisiana) — In Louisiana, tourism is treated as an unquestioned good — a self-evident engine of prosperity. The pitch is familiar: billions in economic impact, hundreds of thousands of jobs created or supported, and tax revenues that supposedly pay for services without burdening residents. Legislators hear the numbers and see opportunity. Industry leaders cite multipliers and “return on investment.” Local boards promise that we’re just one more sports complex or convention center away from prosperity.

But the deeper question remains: prosperity for whom — and at what cost?

Culture Cannot Be Manufactured

Louisiana’s culture is not a marketing slogan. It is the lived inheritance of French, Spanish, African, Native American, Caribbean, and Acadian influences layered over centuries. Our culture includes neighborhood krewes that organize parades without asking permission from Baton Rouge. It is church fairs, family crawfish boils, and recipes for gumbo, jambalaya, and boiled crawfish that can not be adequately described in a consultant’s spreadsheet. They are living expressions of the state’s cultural fusion. Louisiana is the birthplace of jazz, zydeco, and Cajun fiddle tunes, with each genre telling stories of migration, struggle, and celebration.

Tourism promoters often claim they are “preserving culture.” In reality, culture survives because communities live it — not because it is packaged and sold. When government agencies step in to “manage” or “monetize” cultural identity, they risk converting something organic into something transactional. The more culture is treated as a product, the more incentives shift away from authenticity and toward whatever attracts the highest modeled return.

The Billion-Dollar Claim

Groups such as the Louisiana Travel Association and the Louisiana Office of Tourism regularly promote figures, such as $24.8 billion annual economic impact and 224,600 jobs supported. That spending allegedly supported 224,600 hospitality jobs, contributed $2 billion in state/local taxes (plus $1.5 billion in federal taxes), and generated a 43:1 return on state sales tax investments. It is numbers like these that leave lawmakers excited about new legislation or appropriations to support more tourism in Louisiana. But in reality, no one really knows how accurate these numbers are!

Those figures are not derived from audited tax receipts, though. They are not reconciled against line-item collections from the Louisiana Department of Revenue or matched to verified payroll data from the Louisiana Workforce Commission. They are modeled.

Economic impact models rely on surveys, assumptions about visitor spending, and multipliers that estimate how money circulates through an economy. The models themselves are proprietary, the assumptions are not fully transparent, and the results cannot be independently replicated. This does not mean tourism has no economic value. It plainly does. It means the numbers used to justify public policy decisions are projections—not audited outcomes.

Modeled Impact, Real Money

A critical analysis titled “Uses and Abuses of Economic Impact Studies in Tourism” argues that the very methodology of these studies often leads to inflated figures, with a frequent overreliance on high multipliers and promotional intent that skews results in favor of perceived benefits. Another review focusing on economic impact studies for sporting events emphasizes how subjective methods and biases can distort results. It points out that consultants—often commissioned by event promoters or government boosters—frequently report gross benefits without accounting for net effects, costs, or substitution effects, such as time-switchers (visitors who would have come anyway) and local spending displaced by tourist activity.

This is the same scenario playing out now as the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Center endeavors to build another sports complex in Lafayette. And, as Milton Friedman reminds us, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

Modeled Numbers vs. Measured Reality — A Local Example

A recent KATC report highlighting the economic impact of youth sports facilities in Lafayette Parish drew our attention and prompted important questions. In the report, Broussard Mayor Ray Bourque described the Broussard Sports Complex as generating “$21 million in direct business sales” and helping “secure and uplift” the local economy. Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission President and CEO Ben Berthelot went further, stating that in 2025, sports were a major driver of the region’s tourism market, resulting in “over 55,000 room nights, 103 events, over a $36 million economic impact just on the youth sports market alone.”

Those are impressive claims. They are also the type of claims frequently used to justify additional public investment, taxes, and government-supported tourism initiatives. The only problem is that they can’t be supported by evidence.

Because of the significance of those figures — and the policy decisions often tied to them — public records requests were submitted to both the City of Broussard and the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission (LCVC) seeking documentation supporting the reported economic impact numbers. While it may take the City of Broussard some time to respond (they may even finish the new pickleball courts before we get any answers), LCVC provided a prompt response.

The public records response did not include any documentation showing post-event verification of attendance, confirmed hotel occupancy, or measured visitor spending associated with the reported totals. Instead, the figures promoted publicly appear to reflect aggregated projections generated by software using manually entered estimates.

The Distinction Matters

The information provided by LCVC offers an instructive look at how tourism economic impact figures are being generated at the local level. The publicly promoted figures were derived from entries in a customer relationship management (CRM) system using manually entered assumptions and an economic impact calculator. Event data includes estimated overnight visitors, day visitors, room nights, room rates, and the percentage of attendees who are non-locals. The software then applies preset spending assumptions across categories such as lodging, food and beverage, facility rental, transportation, and other services to generate a total economic impact value.

In other words, the numbers are not the result of measured economic activity. They are modeled projections generated from assumptions (guesses) entered into a calculator. Because the outcome depends heavily on the assumptions entered, different inputs can produce significantly different economic impact estimates. If you want a better projection, you simply have to conjure up and enter more optimistic values. If you want to build a new sports complex, you simply create the data that justifies it.

This distinction is critical. The estimated room nights entered into a software tool do not match the verified hotel stays. Projected visitor spending derived from preset multipliers is not the same as documented tax collections or business revenue. While such models can be useful for planning purposes, they do not constitute independently verifiable economic outcomes.

This local example mirrors the broader concerns raised about statewide tourism impact claims. When economic impact figures originate from models based on assumptions and guesswork rather than audited data, policymakers and taxpayers have limited ability to evaluate whether promised economic benefits actually materialized.

However, modeled projections are presented to the public as actual economic outcomes!

Louisiana Tourism Recovery and Improvement Districts

Government policy during the COVID era did more to destroy small businesses, impoverish people, and infringe on individual liberties than to actually “slow the spread.” The tourism industry was no exception. While Louisiana was under John Bel Edwards’s lockdown, people were fleeing to other states that remained “open” for vacation and entertainment.

In response, former State Representative Randal Gaines (D 3/10) put forth a plan to get the tourism industry back on track. The solution? Create more government, of course! Gaines brought forth HB415 during the 2021 Regular Session as a “recovery” plan for the tourism industry. The legislature declared:

There is a direct correlation between the amount of funds spent on destination-based marketing, sales, and promotion of a locality and an increase in the number of conventions, meetings  visitors, occupancy of lodging businesses, retail sales of food, beverages, and other items, admissions to cultural and other entertainment venues, collections of related state and local sale and use taxes, job creation, and a resulting general economic vitality of the traveler economy and related businesses in the locality.”

Sounds like (and probably was) something written by the travel association or tourist industry. The Gaines plan was ultimately adopted by our legislature and became the law (Act 319). The sole purpose is to “facilitate the collection of supplementary funds to market and promote destinations.” According to Gaines, the plan would sustain the industry through crises and economic setbacks. Gaines indicated that we didn’t have to guess at the outcomes because this was already being done in Louisiana, occurring in Jefferson Parish and New Orleans. Which begs the question as to why legislation was needed in the first place.

It’s a Fee, Not a Tax!

What would all this cost? Gaines repeatedly stated that the districts aren’t mandated; it’s up to local tourism boards to decide whether to create them. Additionally, the funding mechanism would be a ‘voluntary fee’ rather than a tax.

This caught the attention of then State Representative Blake Miguez (R 9/10). Miguez questioned how this process would work and whether we were imposing a tax on the people without their vote. Were we giving up taxing power to a group of non-elected commissioners?

The law would ultimately allow the levy to be collected at up to 5% on a percentage basis or up to $5 on a dollar basis. That fee (tax), at least as set up in Lafayette, would be collected from the customer not as “voluntary” but as a “mandatory surcharge.”

The Lafayette Plan

In August of 2023, the unelected Board of the Lafayette Parish Convention and Visitors Commission passed a resolution forming the Lafayette Tourism Improvement District and announcing its intention to levy an assessment (TAX). That resolution passed by a vote of 5 to 0, with 4 board members reported absent. The resolution included the management plan, required by state law.

According to the plan, it includes “all lodging businesses existing” in the parish of Lafayette. It went on to define what a “lodging business” is, and although short-term rentals, bed and breakfasts, and campgrounds clearly fall within that definition, they were exempt from collecting assessments. This is likely because, if they had been included, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to get at least 67% of the businesses on board. This means the assessment is collected only at hotels and motels in Lafayette Parish, making them less competitive.

Although Louisiana law clearly states that funds are to be collected for “market and promote destinations,” the plan, as adopted, seeks to expand the scope beyond the legislative framework. Instead of marketing, LCVC wants to provide capital improvements, sales, programs, opportunity funding, contingency and reserves, related administrative and operational fees, and other improvements and activities, ALL in addition to marketing and advertising programs. The possibilities are endless!

The Silver Lining

If there is a silver lining to the whole thing, it is that the Lafayette Tourism Improvement District has a five-year life. Additionally, there is a 30-day period each year during which the assessors may request the dissolution of the district. Simply put, it is not too late. Atlas could shrug!

Aside from that, the plan is already beginning to stall. The inclusion of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the scheme has met opposition. The University, which has recently been scrutinized for its $25 million recurring deficit, wants a full-scale hotel in the complex. Why are they even discussing getting involved in such outlandish projects, which have nothing to do with higher education? The University’s leadership has already proven they aren’t, and can’t be, fiscally responsible. The figurehead may be gone, but the same people who allowed the poor decisions that got the University to where it is today are still calling the shots.

Spending Another $40 Million

Outside marketing companies and consultants will continue to push for the Lafayette Tourism Improvement District to build the $40 million recreational facility. After all, that is how they make their money. Don’t worry that there is no clear plan for the long-term maintenance and operations of such a facility. That doesn’t matter to them. That is just another burden that could fall on Louisiana taxpayers down the road. We can cross the bridge when we get there, they say.

Those pushing this boondoggle believe the Louisiana taxpayer should once again shoulder more of the burden. It was just a few months ago our Legislature and Governor determined we can pay $7 million dollars for a golf tournament, $5 million dollars for bowling, $3.5 million dollars for a horse racing facility, $1.5 million dollars for gymnastics, $1.5 million dollars for a UFC event, and $1 million dollars to the owners of the Saints and Pelicans. Suck it up, buttercup! Even if you are hurting, you aren’t giving enough of your hard-earned money away to the government.