New Orleans Tourism Statistics and Trends 2026

In short: New Orleans welcomed 19.46 million visitors in 2025, within 1% of the 2019 record, and they spent $10.8 billion. Tourism supports more than 85,000 jobs. Super Bowl LIX added $1.25 billion statewide, Mardi Gras 2026 drew 1.2 million out-of-town guests and Jazz Fest 475,000 fans. However, hotel occupancy slipped to the high 50s in 2025, MSY handled 12.4 million passengers, still below 2019, and cruise movements fell to 1.07 million.

Last reviewed 5 October 2026. Every figure on this page was checked against the source named next to it; where two sources disagree, the difference is stated.

New Orleans runs on visitors: tourism is one of the city's largest employers, and its calendar is built around Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest and a steady stream of conventions and cruise departures. This page gathers the key numbers for 2026 — how many people visit, what they spend, how full the hotels are, how busy the airport and cruise terminals have been, and how the city has recovered since 2019 and Hurricane Ida. Figures come from New Orleans & Company, the Louisiana Office of Tourism, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, Port NOLA, STR/CoStar, LSU and Tulane researchers, and festival organisers. All amounts are in US dollars.

Visitor numbers: back within 1% of the 2019 record

New Orleans welcomed 19.46 million visitors in 2025, a 2% increase on 2024 and just 1% short of the all-time record of 19.75 million set in 2019, according to the New Orleans & Company 2025 visitation results (research by MMGY Global, published May 2026). It was only the third year in the city's history above 19 million, which makes 2024 and 2025 the second- and third-best tourism years on record.

2019: 19.75 million visitors — still the record (New Orleans & Company).
2021: 15.73 million visitors; 2022: 17.53 million (New Orleans & Company figures reported by FOX 8).
2023: 17.93 million; 2024: 19.08 million, up 6.4% (New Orleans & Company).
For the long view: 10.1 million visitors in 2004, falling to just 3.7 million in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans & Company, August 2025).

Spending, jobs and economic impact

Visitors spent $10.8 billion in 2025, which New Orleans & Company describes as an increase of $800 million over 2024's $10.0 billion (New Orleans & Company). The two most recent releases do not agree on 2024, though: the organisation's June 2025 release had put 2024 spending at $10.4 billion, up 8.4% on $9.6 billion in 2023 and above the 2019 high point of $10.045 billion (New Orleans & Company release via Hotel Online). The newer release does not explain the restated base, so the 2024 figure should be read as $10.0–10.4 billion.

Tourism and hospitality support more than 85,000 jobs in New Orleans (New Orleans & Company, 2025 results); the previous year's release said more than 80,000.
Meetings and conventions contribute more than $2 billion in direct spending a year, and New Orleans ranked third in the US as a convention destination in 2024 (New Orleans & Company).
Hotels alone: an Oxford Economics study for the American Hotel & Lodging Association, covering the 12 months to November 2025, found New Orleans hotels sold 7.1 million room nights, generated nearly $9 billion in business sales and sustained more than 51,000 jobs — 19% of all jobs in the city (AHLA/Oxford Economics via Hotel Online).
Statewide, Louisiana counted 45 million visitors and $19.5 billion in visitor spending in 2025 (+5.4%), with 225,600 tourism and hospitality jobs, making it the state's fourth-largest industry (Louisiana Office of Tourism, April 2026).

Hotels and occupancy: big peaks, softer baseline

The AHLA study counts 207 hotel properties with 30,612 guest rooms in New Orleans (AHLA/Oxford Economics). Year-round demand has not returned to pre-pandemic strength, however. HVS, analysing CoStar data for the city's hotels, notes that occupancy ran in the low 70s between 2014 and 2019, settled in the 60s after the pandemic and declined to the high 50s in 2025 (HVS, April 2026). Visitor numbers are near the record, but the average night is emptier than it used to be.

Event weeks tell a different story. During Mardi Gras 2025, the roughly 26,000 hotel rooms downtown and in the French Quarter averaged nearly 87% occupancy from 28 February to Fat Tuesday and peaked at 95% on the Saturday, against an 81% average in 2024 (New Orleans & Company data via The Times-Picayune/Hotel Online). For French Quarter Festival 2026, New Orleans & Company projected 93% occupancy on Friday and 94% on Saturday, up from 89% and 92% in 2025 (New Orleans & Company, April 2026).

Super Bowl LIX: the 2025 boost

New Orleans hosted its 11th Super Bowl in February 2025, matching Miami's record. An LSU study published in June 2025 put the statewide economic impact at $1.25 billion — more than double the 2013 New Orleans Super Bowl (Louisiana Economic Development).

115,000 attendees, of whom 100,000 came from out of state (Louisiana Economic Development).
$658 million spent by visitors and vendors, $395 million in wages and $82.7 million in state and local tax revenue, with 9,787 jobs supported (LSU study via Louisiana Economic Development).
Hotel rates more than doubled: Super Bowl week ADR was $486, up 107%, with RevPAR up 135%. Over the Friday and Saturday, ADR topped $807 at 92.9% occupancy, and in the CBD/French Quarter submarket ADR was just shy of $1,000 at 97.4% occupancy (STR Weekly Insights via Hospitality Net).

Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest

The most recent economic impact study of Mardi Gras, by Tulane economist Toni Weiss and published in 2024, puts the total direct and indirect impact at $891,202,780, equal to 3.07% of New Orleans' GDP. The city earns $2.64 for every $1.00 it spends on staging Carnival, and the season adds about $14.3 million in state tax revenue (Mayor's Mardi Gras Advisory Council and New Orleans & Company). A newer study of the 2025 season by the University of New Orleans Hospitality Research Center was funded by the state in June 2025 (UNO); we could not find published results as of October 2026.

For 2026, New Orleans & Company recorded more than 2.2 million visits over Mardi Gras, including 1.2 million out-of-town guests between 12 and 17 February — a 20% increase on the same period in 2025 — and 40% of them came from more than 250 miles away (New Orleans & Company, February 2026 CEO update).

Jazz Fest 2026 drew 475,000 fans, up from 460,000 in 2025, despite storms that cut short two days (OffBeat); more than 600 bands played 14 stages over two weekends (Grateful Web).
The 2024 festival, with an extra day and the Rolling Stones, drew half a million people — its second-highest attendance after 600,000 in 2001 (Associated Press via NBC). OffBeat's 2026 report gives 450,000 for 2024; we use the organisers' figure reported at the time.

Getting there: MSY airport

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) handled 6,217,724 enplaned and 6,206,518 deplaned passengers in 2025 — 12.42 million combined, down from 13.12 million in 2024 (enplanements −5.2%, deplanements −5.3%), according to the airport's final December 2025 statistics (MSY airline statistics). The pre-pandemic peak was 13.6 million passengers in 2019, as the airport's director of aviation has stated (FOX 8).

Southwest is the dominant carrier with 32.8% of 2025 enplanements, followed by Delta (17.0%) and American (16.7%); Spirit's enplanements fell 10.0% over the year and 59.4% in December (MSY).
International scheduled flights carried 120,618 enplaned passengers (1.9% of the total), almost flat on 2024; British Airways grew 5.1% to 43,485, while Air Canada fell 22.7% (MSY).

Cruise: a million passengers a year

Port NOLA closed 2025 with 1,067,407 cruise passenger movements, the ninth year above one million (2020–21 excluded), but below the more than 1.2 million of 2024 (Port NOLA, January 2026). March 2025 set a monthly record of over 165,000 movements (Port NOLA).

90% of cruise guests come from outside Louisiana, and 70% of them spend one or two days in New Orleans before or after sailing (Port NOLA).
Cruising generates 300,000+ hotel room nights and about $445 million in direct and indirect economic impact; the port describes itself as the sixth-largest US cruise port and the only US port offering both ocean and river cruising (Port NOLA).

Domestic vs international

New Orleans is overwhelmingly a domestic destination, but the city's published visitation results do not split domestic and international visitors. The closest official numbers are statewide: Tourism Economics, in an April 2025 outlook for Travel South USA, forecast Louisiana would receive 554,000 international visits and $848 million in international spending in 2025, down 10% and 6% on 2024 and still below 2019 (Travel South USA). Ten markets, including Canada, the UK/Ireland, Australia, the DACH region and France, account for 69% of the state's international tourism spending (Travel South USA). At the airport, international scheduled flights carried under 2% of passengers in 2025 (MSY).

Recovery since 2019 and Hurricane Ida

Hurricane Ida struck in late August 2021, just as visitors were returning after COVID. In mid-September 2021 STR found that 155 of 208 New Orleans hotels (75%) were closed, taking 28,756 of 35,835 rooms (80%) offline — mostly because of power outages, staffing and services such as laundries rather than structural damage (STR via Lodging Magazine). In the week ending 4 September 2021, New Orleans posted the lowest weekend total-room-inventory occupancy in STR's weekly US report, at 40% (STR via Hospitality Net).

Even so, the city still logged 15.73 million visitors in 2021 and added 1.8 million more in 2022 (FOX 8). By 2025, visitor numbers were 99% of the 2019 peak and spending was above it (New Orleans & Company). The air and cruise numbers lag, however: MSY was still about 1.2 million passengers below 2019 in 2025, and cruise passenger movements fell year on year (MSY; Port NOLA).

What it means for visitors

Event dates set the price. Super Bowl week pushed average rates up 107% and French Quarter rooms close to $1,000 a night (STR); Mardi Gras and festival weekends run at 90%+ occupancy (New Orleans & Company).
Ordinary weeks are quieter than they were. With citywide occupancy in the high 50s in 2025 (HVS), travellers with flexible dates have more choice outside the big events.
Cruise passengers stay over. Most out-of-state cruisers spend one or two nights in the city (Port NOLA), so departure days add to hotel demand near the river.