How has coronavirus impacted New Orleans' economy? Join our economic outlook discussion

[00:00:00] Speaker ?: Thank you. [00:00:30] Speaker 1: We are so grateful to our panelists and our online audience members for joining us today to discuss a topic that has been at the core of every dinner table conversation and boardroom discussion for the last five months. Which is how does the New Orleans economy survive the coronavirus pandemic? We are at an especially critical time with federal benefits expiring or being exhausted and a second wave of cases overwhelming the state. Today, we will hear from four prominent business leaders in our community who will field questions from our moderator, Jerry DiColo, who serves as our Metro editor in New Orleans. We'd also like to extend a big thank you to our sponsors, Hancock Whitney Bank and LCMC Health. So let's get started. [00:01:40] Speaker 2: Thank you, Martha. And welcome, everyone, to our mid-year economic outlook. We typically hold these forums at the St. Charles Avenue newsroom of the Times-Picayune New Orleans Advocate. We meet in person over coffee, gather some 200 people together with many more viewing online to discuss whatever pressing business, economic, and public policy issues are top of mind. And of course, today we are doing this online and the format is driven by the only economic and public policy issue that there really is at the moment, which is the coronavirus pandemic. The actions by state and local officials to slow the spread and keep our hospitals from being overrun have, of course, decimated the local economy. And I'll give you some statistics on that. Well, over 300,000 Louisianas have filed jobless claims. And if you include gig workers, nearly one out of every four workers in the state is currently out of work. Louisiana Restaurant Association projects as many as half of New Orleans restaurants could close. Cruises are canceled, and the convention center said last month that New Orleans is set to take a $1.2 billion hit to its economy due to canceled and disrupted events. Hotel taxes, which fund a host of city services, as well as parts of the hospitality industry, could be down by half this year, representing a loss of tens of millions of dollars. And while federal recovery money is helping, the city of New Orleans is nevertheless facing a budget crisis. Our doctors and nurses have responded heroically across the city's hospitals, but the health care system itself has had to rely on federal funding after elective surgeries and other procedures were curtailed. And so 15 years after the federal levies failed, another disaster strikes. This one, of course, has impacts across the U.S. and the world, but New Orleans will nevertheless bear the brunt with an economy whose backbone is still getting people together in restaurants, in music halls, at festivals, for conventions, all the things we simply cannot do because of the coronavirus. A March analysis by the Brookings institution predicted that New Orleans would be the third hardest hit of over 100 large U.S. metro areas, and that's thanks largely due to the city's dependence on tourism. So the city finds itself again at a crossroads, and that's why we've gathered together business leaders today to try and better understand the depths of the calamity and, more importantly, how we are going to pull ourselves out of it. Our panelists today represent a cross-section of the city's economic sectors, and I will introduce them to you now. Jerry Reyes is the general manager of the West and New Orleans Canal Place, a 460-room hotel at the foot of Canal Street that recently completed a $30 million revitalization. Reyes has more than 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry with stops at several New Orleans-area hotels. He's an MBA graduate of the University of New Orleans Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Program, and has also been an assistant professor at UNO in the program. In June, Governor John Bel Edwards named Reyes to serve as president of the Ernest & Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, which is the board that oversees the operations and management of the Convention Center. So welcome, Jerry. [00:05:04] Speaker 3: Good morning. Thank you. [00:05:06] Speaker 2: Greg Fern is the chief executive officer at LCMC Health, which is a five-hospital system that includes Children's Hospital of New Orleans, New Orleans East Hospital, Turo, University Medical Center, and West Jefferson Medical Center, and may soon include East Jefferson Medical Center as well. Greg has over 26 years of healthcare leadership experience. After 11 years in leadership at Children's Hospital in New Orleans, Greg began working with his team to build a broader health system to serve the New Orleans community. He served as the head negotiator when Children's Hospital acquired Turo and provided leadership during the formation of LCMC Health and its other acquisitions. After spending several years as the new system's CFO and COO, Greg was appointed CEO of LCMC Health in 2014. Originally from Wisconsin, Greg has served on a number of boards and in leadership positions of local programs, including on the boards of Greater New Orleans Incorporated, Metairie Park Country Day School, the Business Council of New Orleans in the River Region, New Orleans Museum of Art, and Louisiana Hospital Association. Welcome, Greg. Thanks for being here. [00:06:13] Speaker 4: Thank you, Jerry. Happy to be here. [00:06:15] Speaker 2: Brandy Christian is the president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans and the CEO of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad Corp., which is a short-line railroad connecting and a connecting railroad and a subsidiary of the Port. The two public agencies have combined revenues of $100 million, nearly $500 employees, and more than $200 million in capital projects. In her position as head of the Port, Christian oversees all cargo, crews, and industrial real estate operations, and as the CEO of the public belt, she sets the strategic direction and oversees all rail holdings. Christian also serves on a number of boards and commissions, including the Green Marine, Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank Trade and Tourism Advisory Council, and the World Trade Center of New Orleans, among others. Before joining Port Nola, Christian served 14 years with the Port of San Diego. So, Brandy, thank you very much for being with us today. Thank you. And Michael Hecht. Michael is the president and CEO of Greater New Orleans Incorporated, the economic development agency for Southeast Louisiana. Before coming to GNO, Inc., Michael led the quarter-billion-dollar Katrina Small Business Recovery Program for the state. And before coming home to Louisiana, Michael worked for Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City, running the post-9-11 small business program. An MBA from Stanford with an undergraduate degree from Yale, Michael has been recognized as one of the 10 people who made a difference in the South and was the 2018 CEO of the Year in New Orleans. So, Michael, thank you very much for joining us. Jerry, great to be here. Thanks for having me. So, I'm going to go right into questions, everyone. And the first question I want to focus on is on the tourism and hospitality industry, which is really what I think a lot of the focus of conversations, like Martha said, around dinner tables has been. Since March, the tourism in the city has really been virtually nonexistent. And, you know, while we've reported on a number of one-off deals to use hotel space, whether it be the Saints running blocks in the Lowe's or Tulane and Xavier running space in downtown hotels to facilitate fall move-ins, the outlook nevertheless looks very grim, at least for the next several months. Jerry, I want to put this question to you. What are hotels doing right now just to keep the lights on? [00:08:39] Speaker 3: Well, you know, just to look at it broadly and then kind of look specifically into our market, you know, as you can imagine, the impact has been significant on travel nationwide. And, in fact, the U.S. Travel Association reported that the impact is roughly $297 billion to the travel economy in the United States. That's significant. Domestic travel is expected to finish about 30 percent down, while international inbound travel is expected to see a decline of about 64 percent this year. This is significant, and we've obviously, since the pandemic hit, have been pretty heavily dependent on solely transient travel. All of our conferences individually for hotels have canceled out for the remainder of this year. The convention center has also seen all of the conferences canceled through this year. Obviously, everyone has been trying to hold on to those, but with this pandemic still being a moving target, we're subject to really the nature of when we will get beyond that and people will feel safe in traveling. But in Louisiana, you know, we've, as we look at the analysis from U.S. travel, you know, each week since the beginning of the pandemic, we've seen about a 49 and a half percent decrease in travel spending. So, as you can imagine, that has a significant impact on our industry and also in our state and our city with tax revenues as well. Weekly state tax revenues are down about three to four million dollars a week as compared to last last year. It's a 30 million dollar impact in just an eight-week period. And then locally, also, we've seen those tax revenues down about two million dollars a week. That's about 16 million dollars impact over an eight-week period. So, you can imagine the long-term impacts that that'll cause in our city, but there is some optimism. You know, obviously, we've been looking at all of the latest trends and information that we can to make educated decisions. In fact, Magma Global conducted a travel COVID-19 survey just to gauge how people feel about traveling now, how will they feel about traveling in a post-COVID-19 environment. And 42.4 percent of those respondents indicated that they will only be willing to travel internationally once there's a vaccine. These numbers are much more favorable, the percentage is much more favorable for domestic travel. The vast majority want to see a vaccine, and they do consider that a factor, but only about 12.2 percent were specific on not traveling until there's a vaccine. So, 60% of those surveyed indicated that they would not be willing to cruise ever again, which is a scary number, especially with cruises out of New Orleans. But the encouraging component is that 90% of those surveyed said that they would be willing to drive to a vacation destination. And as you know, New Orleans is very drivable from all of our surrounding states. And that's really what we've been seeing as our bread and butter so far in this COVID-19 environment, is that we've been experiencing a lot of drive-in traffic, and we're also seeing kind of a shift in the booking pattern. So, what we've seen change is that there's a much shorter window between booking and stay. In fact, over a third of all those bookings happen the same day. We're at my hotel, if I use it as an example specifically, we're running about 15% occupancy on weekday and about 35% occupancy on weekends. And a lot of that is happening in the same day, short term, with folks that are still looking to travel, have a staycation even, or travel from, again, from our surrounding states. [00:12:48] Speaker 2: So, Jerry, what you're saying, I think is, in other words, people will, you don't know who's coming in your hotel that morning, and people start booking as they kind of make the call, and say, "Hey, you know what, let's just take a trip to New Orleans, we'll go there for a day, we'll go, there's a restaurant that at least we can get and go to," and they show up, is kind of how it's been working for you. [00:13:12] Speaker 3: Exactly, exactly. So, a lot of short term bookings, two thirds of all bookings are happening within 14 days. So, that's a pretty significant shift. Obviously, we're, our main focus is on making sure that everyone feels safe. That's the main concern, the top concern, is that they feel like they're coming into an environment where we're following all the right protocols, doing everything that we can to ensure our associates' safety as well as their safety, as our guests as well. So, we've, we've done a lot of focus on that, that's really where, as an industry, you know, even with the Greater New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association, we have a small working group, then we meet three times a week, and our focus is specifically on sharing all of those best practices, what are, what is everybody doing to make sure that we convey that to our guests, and that we all share ideas on how we can best approach safety in general. But, the, the, the, the positive is that there is, there is a lot of pent up, uh, desire to travel. Um, uh, the survey also showed that is that, uh, once we can get on the other side of this, uh, things will rebound, uh, we will see travel come back, we will see, uh, the desire to, to book at, in destinations specifically like New Orleans come back. Uh, some of the, the details on the, the survey also showed that there's a hesitation to travel internationally. So, what we'll see with a destination like New Orleans is that we will be in higher demand, uh, if we're doing the right things, if we are prepared, uh, we will be able to, to capture some of those that may have been looking to travel internationally. One other thing that I'll point out just in terms of how our business has shifted and a lot of our hotels have experienced is that, uh, those that may have been looking to book a destination wedding elsewhere, or, uh, travel abroad to, to, uh, to have a wedding. They're looking more locally. So we've seen a significant uptick in the demand for, uh, and actually bookings, uh, for not only into the future years, but even this year with folks that were planning on, uh, being abroad or, or being in other States for their wedding, they're looking to, to move those and keep them here. Um, uh, so obviously New Orleans is not a bad alternative to, to any of those. So we're capitalizing on that and doing all we can to make sure that we ensure that they feel safe. [00:15:33] Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, I want to throw it over to, to Brandy because, um, you know, Jerry did talk a little bit about, um, the cruise business. Um, you know, I, I'd, I'd be interested to sort of, um, find out, um, you know, a little bit of the outlook for cruises. I mean, I know that earlier, I think it was earlier this week, um, Carnival, Carnival again, extended the, their, their delay in cruises till October. They've kind of continued to extend it over the last several months. Um, I mean, you can walk us through, um, the disruptions that we've seen both on the cruise business side, um, but also maybe some of the issues that you've been facing over the past few months when it comes to either trade disruptions or changes in how people are sending things around the world, supply chains. I mean, I think that that is really something that a lot of people have been trying to understand as much as they can, given, um, the needs for PPE and other supplies and things like that. [00:16:26] Speaker 5: Certainly. Well, good morning, uh, Jerry, I think, um, the backdrop on the hospitality industry and a lot of the points that Jerry highlighted really gives a good overview of what we're experiencing on the cruise side. And I think, um, the, um, the, um, the biggest hit for, uh, the port business here in New Orleans was definitely on the cruise business. Uh, it's about 17% of our budget, but really, um, I think typically people think about the impact of hotels and restaurants, which have been significant. With the downturn and the halting of cruises, but a lot of local small businesses that provide the goods and services, um, to the ships have been impacted. Um, as mentioned the, uh, PC and with working with the cruise lines, halted sailings in mid March. And, uh, they are continuing to work with CDC and trying to take an industry coordinated approach to, um, sailing again. I think the cruise industry recognizes that for them to be successful, that they have to have a coordinated effort in terms of the health and safety protocols and, um, guidelines with the CDC. Um, so I think you've seen most of the lines, the timing, you know, return, um, to be around the fall. If they can reach a great agreement on those protocols, because the health and safety is going to be the most important, um, aspect of cruise. Um, I think, um, I think the cruise industry is always been one of the most resilient tourism industries. You've been seeing that after nine 11, because such a small population has ever gone on a cruise. So there's a big untapped market. Um, I think most surveys are pointing to those that have not cruised probably have the most fear, um, post COVID. Um, I can tell you with the bookings that have already been opened by our cruise line partners for next year. The bookings are going extremely well, surprisingly well. Um, they cruise industry for them to be successful are going to have to adapt a lot of the operations, both, um, here at the port with the terminal, but also on board. Um, I think you're going to see a lot more technologies around sanitation, use of HVAC systems, UV lights, automated, um, sanitation of all bags, goods, products, and people that enter and come off of the ship. You're going to see a lot more touchless technology. Um, when they do begin sailing, they will reduce their occupancy. Um, right now, uh, the river cruises are aiming for about 75% occupancy to make sure that you have that social distancing and less, uh, gathering of larger groups. And you're going to see many of those common areas like buffets, et cetera, um, probably be suspended within the operations. Um, right now, the current outlook from the industry is that they should be back to the 2019 levels by 2023. If you know, things stay on the trajectory with the recovery of COVID, uh, where we are today, I can tell you, and I, I think Jerry kind of pointed to this is what we're hearing from our partners. um, what is going to be attractive is short itineraries, domestic and not very exotic itineraries for people to be comfortable. Um, that votes very well for newer, New Orleans, we are strong, strong drive market. Um, we are between Florida, Texas, and New Orleans. We are the top three ports that had been targeted for return of cruise. Um, we are even seeing, um, itineraries in requests that typically we wouldn't have cruises during that season, but they don't want to go to the other markets. They're going to try to stay in North America. So we may actually pick up, um, some of those calls we traditionally would not have, um, but for it to be successful. I think it'll be, um, a little bit of a slow climb back. It's going to be very important that it is a coordinated, um, return by the industry with very strong protocols put in place. [00:20:42] Speaker 2: You know, I think a lot of this, um, you know, what Jerry and what Brandy, you're both saying, I mean, is, is so dependent on the recovery, right? And it's our, do we continue on the same trajectory? Um, I would say, I mean, I, I want to turn it to, to Greg because, you know, someone that runs five area hospitals probably has some of the best insight into some of the things that are happening with dealing with that recovery with, um, some of the Herculean efforts that our doctors and nurses have have been taking on over the past several months, um, you know, we've heard from a lot of the doctors and nurses, we've learned about new treatment for our plans. Um, you know, and we've also, um, started to see at least in the new Orleans area, some improvement in terms of hospitalization rates and, um, like I said, new treatments where there's fewer people on ventilators and, um, things like that. Um, maybe you could just walk us through a little bit of what it looks like in your hospitals today in the region, um, to get a better sense of, um, of what's going on there. [00:21:50] Speaker 4: Sure, Jerry, and, um, I do appreciate you recognizing the Herculean effort by our physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, frontline staff, uh, they've been at it for quite a while now with, with the pandemic. Um, I would tell you that, uh, we are, we are very much at a manageable place right now, uh, in our hospitals in new Orleans. And I think the greater new Orleans, uh, hospitals could say the same thing. So we, for the most part had our peak around April 1st. Um, and I think that would go to Ochsner and East Jeff and the other hospitals in the area. Um, at that point in our adult facilities, we had 400, uh, positive patients, inpatients, uh, in our facilities. Um, and today, or, or as of yesterday, we had 51. Um, and if I go back to April 1st, we had over a hundred patients in our intensive care units. Uh, this morning we had 15, uh, across our four adult facilities, uh, and 22 of those 51 patients were transferred in from outside the greater New Orleans area. So we are helping, uh, other, other areas of the state. Every region is reacting a little bit differently. Uh, so back in the end of March, early April, when over 60% of our inpatient census was COVID-19 positive, uh, with some really sick folks. In our intensive care units today, we're, uh, at about 8%. Um, so we're at a manageable number because we are doing elective, um, non-emergent procedures, uh, back in March and April, we were, we, all of those had been, uh, stopped. Which allowed us that, uh, excess capacity to take care of the COVID-19 patients. Um, so we still have that certainly in our, our, our toolkit, we can reduce, uh, non-emergent procedures. Uh, we haven't needed to do that. Um, and we've been hovering around that eight, eight to 10% of our census number over the last several weeks. The trailing, uh, 14 days has, it has come down a little bit. Um, so we feel pretty good about it. I know other areas of the state, Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge are, have a bit of a different story. Um, Lake Charles, Lafayette, I believe that several weeks ago, they began to limit their elective procedures to give them some more capacity. I think Baton Rouge is doing the same thing, uh, but we feel pretty good about where we are. Uh, it's manageable right now and we're, we're liking the trend that we've at least seen post, uh, 4th of July, um, the trailing 14a numbers, um, are pretty good. Uh, we're also seeing just a younger demographic present in the ED, so these, uh, individuals aren't as sick as, as the individuals we saw back in March and April, uh, the racial demographics has shifted a bit. Um, so we're, we're seeing some admissions, but a lower length of stay, um, so it's been manageable. Um, I think in local officials have done a great job and I can't say enough about our employees in our, in our hospitals. [00:25:10] Speaker 2: One of the things that has been brought up, I know, um, Our Lady of the Lake brought it up, um, a couple of weeks ago and we've also seen it in other cities is the staffing issues. It's, it seems like most people, most hospital systems have, uh, stocked up on PPE and other supplies, um, so they feel like they're in a better place there, but it's still a matter of getting doctors and nurses, um, and enough doctors and nurses to treat everyone that's coming in. Um, and it sounds like at least right now, it's more manageable in the New Orleans area. Um, are you facing any issues there at this point? Are you sending our, our doctors and nurses going to other regions in the state, other areas to help out? I know that we had seen some of those surges at least coming into New Orleans or at least into other hotspots, um, at the peak of the crisis in March and April. [00:25:58] Speaker 4: I'm curious if that's still happening it, you know, it's not happening in the New Orleans area. And when, you know, uh, when we speak about capacity and the percent of our census, that's COVID-19 positive, a lot of it hinges on not our bed capacity because we have sort of that bricks and mortar bed capacity. And it does come down to staffing. And so if we were to get, um, in a situation where we felt like our capacity was stretched, we would begin to limit. Electra procedures, outpatient procedures, our clinic visits that then does free up nurses to help out on the inpatient side. And that's what we did, uh, March, April. And I think Baton Rouge and Blake Charles Lafayette there's there in a situation where they've been doing that. Um, so at their, at their peak of being stretched, um, there was most likely some electric procedures still taking place or non-emergent procedures that, that they can begin to reduce. So fortunately we've been in a manageable situation here in, in, uh, New Orleans. Um, not to the point where we've, we've allowed nurses to, or been able to allow nurses to travel across state. That's, it's a bit challenging, but I think one good thing that we've, we've learned in March and April, um, and it speaks to the resiliency of, of New Orleans. It's all of the hospitals worked together, um, around capacity issues. We, we, that balanced, we transferred patients and we, we are, we Ochsner, East Jeff, uh, Tulane. We are helping out the state in terms of allowing transfers in, uh, to help relieve the pressures on hospitals across the state. [00:27:45] Speaker 2: What are those collaborative, what are those collaborative efforts look like between the hospital systems? Is this something where, um, you and your counterparts are getting on once weekly calls, twice weekly calls? Are there, um, is it a sharing of treatment protocols between, um, the heads of different emergency rooms? How does that, how does that collaboration work? What does it look like? [00:28:09] Speaker 4: It's, it's all of the above, uh, so back late March, early April. Um, at one point we were, we were having daily calls, um, usually three times a week, uh, between LCMC Health, Ochsner, uh, East Jeff, uh, Tulane HCA, uh, to talk about our bed capacity. Uh, who had limitations in their intensive care units. Uh, those conversations allowed for hospitals to transfer patients, uh, when they became saturated, we talked about treatment plans in intensive care units, how much ventilator use was there, how soon were we getting folks on ventilators, uh, et cetera. So that type of, um, clinical sharing was taking place, not just in the New Orleans area, but even across the state with, uh, weekly calls between chief medical officers of, of hospitals. Uh, in the July timeframe, we did start, um, our weekly calls again in the greater New Orleans area, just because we knew there was a bit of a bump up, uh, hospitals were feeling, uh, um, a capacity crunch just because we were, we were actually back providing non-emergent care and emergent care. You know, we wanted people to get back to, uh, feeling like it was safe to be in hospitals and not put off care, use the emergency room when you need it. Uh, and not stay at home too long where you can, uh, where conditions can worsen. Um, but, and so all of that has continued to work well. It's great, great collaboration amongst the healthcare providers, not just in New Orleans, but across the state. [00:29:46] Speaker 2: See, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to turn to Michael who I think is doing double duty right now, working the front desk at GNO Inc as well as being on this conference call. So that's impressive. Um, Michael always branded all the, almost from the start of the pandemic, um, you've been sending out weekly, a weekly newsletter. Um, uh, so really, I think across the city, the business owners, other stakeholders going with news articles, resources on government programs, um, places to find PPE and other supplies for small business owners. Um, you know, one of the things that I was curious about is just what, what are you hearing from business owners right now? I mean, sometimes, you know, uh, what are the questions that people are bringing to you? What are the questions that, um, whether it be about just muddling through this or the conversations that business people are starting to have around policies and things that need to be done in the next two months or the next three months. [00:30:49] Speaker 6: Um, thanks, Jerry. It's great. It's great to be here. And again, thanks to everybody on the call for your partnership and resilience. And especially Greg, you and all the healthcare workers, extraordinary job. Um, so Jerry, you know, in sending out those missives every day, not three days a week, um, we were kind of falling back on our experience from other disasters, Katrina, 9/11, that people fundamentally want digestible, actionable, credible information. And if you give that to them, that in and of itself makes people feel better. But then in the conversations that I think we've been regularly having probably one theme that's come through this that I expect actually to become more pronounced again is about cash preservation. Uh, I'm a recovering, uh, restaurant tour. And so I understand what this means. And to give you an example of that, I was talking to a restaurant owner about the PPP when it came out. And the restaurant owner said to me, well, this is a great program. I can get a few hundred thousand dollars. But the problem is, um, in order for me to get that loan forgiven, I actually have to spend the money. So yeah, I'm going to be able to keep my people employed for another month or two. That's good. But at the end of those two months, if we're still on lockdown, I have no more cash. I mean, just as a ten of a tenuous cash position as I would have been otherwise. And so I think trying to help people understand in D.C. that when you're a small business owner, that cash and cash flow is king. And that's what really matters. That's been a theme that we've heard from our local businesses. And I think that's why you've seen some changes to the PPP come down where now the forgiveness criteria and the timing is more relaxed to allow businesses to maintain their liquidity, maintain cash so they can stay open. That's, I think, been a prominent theme. [00:32:31] Speaker 2: Jerry, what are you hearing from workers? How many of you have been able to keep on? What are your expectations for bringing more back? I'd be curious just the concerns you're hearing, what are the calls like that you get and what does the runway look like? [00:32:55] Speaker 3: Well, it's limited, as you can imagine, you know, running, you know, 15 percent occupancy. The need is not as great as we would like, of course. So our main focus has been to communicate what's available with those with all of our associates. So we've been in constant communication with them, making sure that they're aware of the assistance that's available, helping them throughout this process with any and everything that they might need. So we've been we found ourselves to be more in that lane of making sure that they have all the information of all the resources that are available to them. But as you can imagine, given the need, we're running pretty much with a limited crew here on property, as as are most properties. There have been many properties that have been creative and trying to make sure that we keep everyone while they're furloughed, you know, keeping them engaged with information. But really, it's been limited in terms of who's actually on property. But I do believe, and to Michael's point, that people want information and they want to be informed and that helps them make educated decisions. And the same applies to our employees with regards to what's happening on property, what's happening in the city, what resources are available to them. We're hearing it all from people, given the $600 unemployment benefit has now expired. [00:34:26] Speaker 2: And so, you know, we're sort of entering this crucial time or we are entering this crucial time where without action by Congress, there's going to be a lot of people who were carried over for some period of time and now are not going to have that lifeline. I mean, what's your view? I mean, do you think a lot of these workers can make it without that type of benefit? I mean, is it, I mean, what do you hear from them? Do you hear, do you get those calls? [00:34:53] Speaker 3: We're getting some. I believe that they're waiting and they're hopeful and we're all hopeful that something will happen because we're just as concerned as they are just to make sure that they're able to weather through. And again, we're providing all of the resources and alternatives that they might have, but I don't believe that we've hit that window for them just yet where we're going to, where we've gotten flooded with calls. I believe that that's coming as people continue to be nervous about what is going to happen. But as of yet, we've only gotten a couple here at my property in particular, but we do believe that that's coming. But we've also, again, even with that, as we get information, we communicate that out to them. We have all of our associates on an app for my property and we're constantly communicating out any information as we have it. [00:35:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, Greg, I want to stick on the employment question or the worker question for a little bit longer. You know, there's been a shortage of nurses, I think. It's been something that has been an issue in the U.S. for a long time. You know, this is, you know, it's always a crisis sometimes that makes you realize how the depths of what you need and, you know, how essential these essential workers are. I want you to look forward a little bit and talk through if there are things that we need to do, whether it be in education, whether it be incentivizing people to go into some of these fields, particularly maybe nursing. We'll use that as an example in the hospital system to try and bring more people in and make it so that we don't have these situations where when there is a surge, we don't have the body. [00:36:44] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, you know, New Orleans and its academic institutions and also its technical schools, our work with LSU and Tulane, Delgado, Dillard, I think the healthcare enterprise can work with those organizations to begin to ramp up, not just the supply of our ends, but LPNs, patient care techs, lab technicians, respiratory therapists. We've seen the, what a reliance on a healthcare system can look like and what it looks like when there's a shortage of personnel. So I think that's, that's part of bringing back the economy in New Orleans is healthcare systems working more closely with the educational institutions to grow the next generation healthcare professionals. Next generation healthcare professionals, and that can be New Orleans and they can help the supply in New Orleans, but it can also help the supply around the country because there's, there has been an RN shortage for quite some time. And we certainly, we certainly felt that during the pandemic and even, even the ability to staff something like they did at the convention center. Again, you can put together the bricks and mortar, but you need, you need the staff. And so I think there'll be in a way, innovative ways and things you'll see in the future from, at least from LCMC Health. And I think the other healthcare providers where we're, we're really focused on growing that workforce. [00:38:15] Speaker 2: Michael, I think you, you said it best where it's just, you know, businesses are just trying to survive. I mean, they're just trying to make payroll, a lot of them, you know, even if it's only 10% of their previous payroll or 30% of their previous payroll. Um, you know, one of the things that has come up a lot in, uh, the discussions around, um, jobless benefits and how we support workers when we have recessions, or in this case, something that could be, if we don't have the right policy response, something that's closer to look, looks a lot more like a depression. Um, is the, are the policies that need to be in place and there's safety net policies that need to be in place when businesses can't support the workers, when there are layoffs like this. Um, you know, I'd be curious, um, from, from your, your perspective, um, are there things that businesses need to be doing right now to better support their workers? Are there longer term policies that we should start thinking about whether it be, uh, an enhanced unemployment insurance that's just on a higher level, um, or unemployment benefits that are a higher level going forward? Um, whether it be job protections, whether it be, um, changes to the healthcare system that you think we should be thinking about now because of this crisis, that maybe our policies that we really didn't think about, or we're not in the middle of the conversation, um, three or four or five months ago. [00:39:45] Speaker 6: Uh, of course, one of the things that you notice about crises is that they pressure test people and they pressure test systems and you see where the seams are. And clearly we have one in this country in terms of our safety net and how it operates. Uh, let me say first that, um, my experience almost universally, and I'm just, you know, saying this not because I'm in front of so many people, but it's the truth is that businesses, I think have gone to extraordinary lengths to try to support their employees. And this false dichotomy that's been set up in all of the media, except the times picking an advocate, of course, um, it's just not right. And it's hurtful, you know, employers want to support and are close professionally, personally with their employees. And so everybody recognizes that they're in this together. Now that being said, we should as a country be thinking about the type of policies that we have in place to support workers, to support new parents, to support businesses, to allow them to weather these storms. Um, because in the end of the day, it increases efficiency. It increases productivity. Um, I'll give you a specific example of this from my lived experience. Um, I'm married to a very proud, uh, Danish, uh, woman. Uh, and, uh, Denmark typically is ranked as one of the happiest countries in the world. But when you go and you visit Denmark, you look around and you go, huh, you know, they're nice, but I wouldn't exactly call them joyful. They're not really happy. But then you begin to realize that what those tests, those surveys are measuring is not happiness. It's lack of misery. It's the exact opposite. And what happens in a place like Denmark, where there's a strong social contract, it's a high trust environment, trust of individuals, trust of institutions, trust of services. Is that people know that there's a safety net so that they fall on hard times, they're going to be okay. And that doesn't make them Mardi Gras joyful, but it removes uncertainty and misery. And that's what we have to move towards, um, in this country. And so what I'm hoping is that coming out of this crisis, we'll look at the nature of our retraining programs, the nature of our unemployment, um, levels, not just, um, the levels, but how it's combined with retraining. Um, I'm hopeful that we'll look at a program like the PPP, which should be part of the law that we just turn on next time the unthinkable happens instead of having to scramble and develop it from scratch every decade. Um, so yeah, I think in general, there has to be a conversation about how, um, workers and businesses together can create more stability and more productivity and all of the issues that we're seeing now. Once we get a vaccine, it would be a huge mistake for us just to revert back to business as usual. [00:42:26] Speaker 2: Brandy, yep. [00:42:30] Speaker 3: Let me chime in just, uh, just a bit and just to echo on something that Michael mentioned. Uh, I do believe that, you know, we are resilient. We, as, as Michael mentioned, a lot of employers are being very creative in what they're doing. And, you know, I've got to give credit to, uh, the, the board over at the convention center, Mike Sawai and his team. But, uh, one thing that, um, uh, that they've done is that, uh, currently they've been able to compensate all 500 of their full and part-time employees throughout all of this, uh, pandemic. Um, and, and that's been something that has been, uh, very, very important to them. It's been something that is obviously keeping them gainfully employed and it's also going to allow the, the convention center to ramp up that much quicker once we get back to business. So I think that they've been a great example of, of, of, of what it means to do the right thing. And, and, and, uh, I think that the employees, of course, will, will definitely appreciate that once we get on the other side of this. But I think that that's just one example of many in our city that, uh, businesses are, are, are focused on doing the right thing as best they can, uh, to make sure that we weather through this. [00:43:34] Speaker 2: Brandy, I want to ask another policy question to you, um, you know, one of the things, um, you know, we are entering a presidential election season, though it sort of seems like it, or sort of doesn't, um, given there's no conventions and no one is, uh, is making any, um, it's, it's heading out and shaking hands and kissing babies. One thing that we've started to see, though, is that in talking about some of the stimulus and recovery, um, you know, the Trump administration had talked about America first and changing and making issues with, um, have, have changed our tariff structure or, um, some of our trade structures. Um, Vice President Biden and some of his policy proposals have, uh, he started to talk about the idea of linking federal spending to U.S. made products. Um, all of these things, um, change the way that goods and services move around the world. And, um, I'm curious if you think that either from a policy perspective or simply, um, the market working the way it does and shifting because of the coronavirus, we're going to see shifts in how trade flows, um, not just in the Port of New Orleans, um, but, you know, U.S. versus some of its trading partners. What do you think that looks like in 2021, 2022? [00:45:02] Speaker 5: Yeah. I like the term Michael used. It really, uh, COVID tested the system, the supply chain, um, system. And I think it showed a weakness of some of the offshore manufacturing and the reliance on that also in, uh, just in time delivery as where most companies had gone, um, streamlining logistics. And I think what you're going to see is that companies are going to look at where are their ability to bring some of the manufacturing on shore. Um, that is always a very, um, a big lift. And if you look at manufacturing, um, take European pharmaceuticals, 80% of the ingredients come from Asia to develop a European pharmaceutical. And so the reality is there's a lot of inputs and outputs, um, for that manufacturing. Um, I think you will see some shift in trying to do some of the fabrication or some of the light manufacturing more, um, in the U S um, that takes time. I think what you will see most immediately is a shift in how companies are managing their supply chains and logistics. Um, I think you're going to see, uh, companies instead of looking at one port of entry sourcing from one market, say Asia, that they are going to work to have backup plans. And I think that bodes very well for the Gulf because traditionally a lot of products coming from Asia and Europe were going east coast, west coast. The Gulf really serves as that great alternative. Um, I think you're going to see more regionalism when it comes to inventories and warehousing and distribution. And areas that have multiple modes of transportation, or you can move something by truck, by rail for us, by the river as well. Cause you started to see that during the pandemic is that you were having, um, health crisis with truck drivers, et cetera, to be able to provide another source of transportation is pretty key. So I think you're going to see more of a demand for warehousing, more stocking of inventory, particularly strategic supplies. such as you saw with PPE. But it absolutely will fundamentally change how companies are looking at the supply chain and it will be at the forefront. I think of most companies, both how they manufacture it, but how they distribute it. And trade policy always drives how cargo and trade moves. It's an industry that's very sensitive to policy, to market issues. A good example is the tariffs that have been placed on steel. Traditionally, the last two years, we've been down about 30% here on the river in terms of the importing of steel. Just this last month, all of the terminals around here were down 58%. Not really seeing any steel move on the river, and that's a direct relation to trade policy. So obviously, with any election, you will see a shift in trade policy. [00:48:11] Speaker 2: We have about 15 minutes left, so I want to take a few questions that were sent in by readers. The first one, and I'll direct this to Jerry, but anyone else, if they want to jump in. What timeline for the return of tourism and the convention business is necessary to prevent the bankruptcy of the city of New Orleans? And I think what they mean by that is really just the economy of the city of New Orleans. [00:48:44] Speaker 3: Well, you know, that's been a moving target. And obviously, we're monitoring any and all information that we can to make an educated decision in terms of the decisions that impact our individual properties. But really, you know, as an anchor, what we really need is for the convention center to really rebound, and that is going to be heavily dependent on when there's a vaccine. You know, if I just look at some statistics, you know, back in 2018, UNO did an economic impact report, and then $2.4 billion of economic impact was directly driven by the convention center. The convention center, over 24,000 jobs, $111 million in state tax revenue and $78 million in local tax revenue. So, you know, as you can see, the convention center is really an anchor to help us, especially with not only the hotels, but the restaurants, all of the providers of all of the products that we use, all of those are heavily dependent on the return of tourism. And conventions are in meetings and events over at the convention center, in addition to obviously Superdope and other venues is really what's going to drive making sure that we can avoid that. And the difficult part and the part that we all can't control is when will there be a vaccine? As I mentioned earlier, I really believe that there's a lot of pent up desire to travel. We've constantly interfaced with groups daily that they want to do business, they want to come back to New Orleans, but they obviously have to make educated decisions, have to do what's right, what they feel is safe. And while we're doing everything within our power to make sure that our destination is safe, we as an industry have even created or are facilitating a website where folks can hold themselves accountable from a hospitality perspective. It's really going to come down to those those that are making the decisions, feeling comfortable in bringing their groups and meetings and events and honestly also even the transient traveler and their confidence in coming back to traveling as normal. So there's it's really tough to tell them when that will happen or when we need that to happen. You know, most hotels right now where we're holding our own with with the minimal occupancy that we have, but that's only going to sustain us for so long. But we are what's what's great is we've all been laying the groundwork, the convention center as well, laying the groundwork to make sure that folks feel safe and that they they're reassured. You know, you may have heard also that, you know, the convention center was able to receive the global bio risk advisory council certification. That is something that is imperative to us being able to return to business as usual and in reassuring those that are making decisions that we are here to make sure that their their conferences go well and that they feel safe. And also, I'm sorry, go ahead. [00:51:50] Speaker 2: No, no, I want to I want to keep I want to stay on this topic because but I want to I want to jump on it a couple of questions to make sure that we get get them in. You know, the a number of people that wrote in asked about the tourism industry and typically the tenor of the of the questions are what do we do so that we're not as reliant on the tourism industry going forward. You know, a lot of them are what should we be prioritizing? What types of things should we be investing in to move us away from that? What are the things that we're good at? What are the things that we're good at? So maybe I'll I'll I'll ask them. I'll throw this to Michael because it's his job to bring those other industries in, you know, where where is the next industry and what should it be? If we're to make it so that the next time we have something like this and hopefully there isn't a next time we don't have a single sector that really can can kind of drag us drag us drag the entire economy down to diversify away from it. [00:53:01] Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks, Jerry. It's the essential question. And the way that I heard it explained to me, I thought very eloquently a few weeks ago is that if we're successful economically, then in 10 years, the tourism and hospitality will be much bigger than it is today, but will only be the fifth or sixth biggest industry in the region. That's what we have to frame it as the opportunities that are going to come out of this are vast. I think that actually we're very well positioned. I'll go through a few of them. One is technology. We've been working on growing our tech industry for about 10 years and we're currently we were just ranked number nine fastest growing in the country. We're also a number five for African-Americans per capita and number three for women per capita in those tech jobs. So it's inclusive innovation. So certainly technology. What Brandy said is right, manufacturing onshore and bring supply chain back from China. We're already in conversations, billion dollar conversations with companies about doing that. Then we also have in in logistics because we've got the river, because we've got the highways, because we've got the six class one railroads, huge opportunity in logistics. And frankly, retail is becoming logistics now. And if you look at some of the facilities we put on the North Shore, like the million square foot Medline facility we just announced, we're going to see many, many more of those. Thinking about Greg and his team, health care, telemedicine, infectious disease, which has been something that we've been a leader in for decades here in New Orleans, dating back to the yellow fever is going to be growth. And now in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, we can be a center for the study and research into that. And then just in general, you're going to see people leaving big, expensive, dense, old markets like New York City and moving to second tier markets that are less dense, less expensive, with better food and nicer people like New Orleans. So in order to do that, I think it's three things we've got to tell our story, let people know that we're safe and open for business. We've got to invest in education from early childhood education to secondary, tertiary, and then to older worker retraining. And then finally, we just got to get the basics right, life safety, amenities, tax structure. And if we do those things, we can actually pivot out of this, frankly, like we did out of Katrina, with more resilience, more diversity, better jobs for more people than we even had before Corona. [00:55:16] Speaker 2: I want to ask one last question, which is related to some of the questions that a few people have asked. The question that is going to spark my question is, what's the latest update on rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans? But the question that I'd like to kind of pivot to is, Michael, I think the last time you came in to talk to us, you talked about the Baton Rouge and New Orleans metro areas as needing to be thought of as more of one metro area. There are some technical specifics that about the number of people that travel between the two areas in order to get that type of designation. We have a census coming out where census is happening. Anyone that's listening that hasn't filled out their census form, fill out your census form immediately. Tell me about the regional, like, are there any things that we're doing to kind of regionalize the two cities that might help us? And I'm going to ask you to do this quickly because we're running out of time. [00:56:20] Speaker 6: But very quickly, we have our South Louisiana Super Region Committee, which is us Baton Rouge in the Bayou Region. We meet regularly. So we've got professional relationships. We're talking about projects like rail or bus rapid transit between the regions. But the basic tenet is this. It's about critical mass, that together we'd be about 2.1, 2.2 million people. And we'd have enormous human capital potential, political potential, economic potential. If we're going to compete against Atlanta, which considers itself a landmass that's 80% the size of Massachusetts, we're much stronger together than apart. So Dallas-Fort Worth are trying to come together. We're trying to come together with Baton Rouge. It's a political and economic necessity, we think. [00:57:00] Speaker 2: Well, everyone, I want to thank you all for joining us today. I thought this was a great conversation. I think Martha is going to jump back on here and jump in. But thank you very much for taking the time this morning. [00:57:17] Speaker 4: Thank you, Jerry. Thank you, Jerry. [00:57:20] Speaker 1: Yes, we here at the Times-Picayune and the Advocate are extremely grateful to have business leaders sort of expand on these issues with us. We are struggling with them every day and our coverage. And I think it's a terrific service to our readers and our online audience to hear directly from you. So thank you for your time, Brandy, Jerry, Greg, and Michael. We really appreciate it. We also appreciate our sponsors for this particular conversation. LCMC Health and Hancock-Whitney Bank. And keep fighting. We will here at the newspaper. So thank you guys. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. [00:58:07] Speaker 6: Martha, thanks to you and all your team. We really appreciate you. Great. Thanks, Brandy. Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Greg. Take care of y'all. Bye-bye. [00:58:16] Speaker ?: Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. [00:58:20] Speaker 3: Bye-bye. [00:58:48] Speaker ?: Bye-bye.