Stephen Perry Quotations

What he did today was to make a very prudent business decision, ... With the tax base decimated for the next six to seven months ...(the city) has lost its basic revenue streams and customer base. You've got to pare down to a basic core and rebuild incrementally.

Only the next few weeks will determine whether tourism will begin rebounding in late October or early November, or whether it is pushed into early next year.

From a multibillion-dollar tourism perspective here in the city, this is one of the most powerful national signals that we can have, because it is the first major sporting commitment since Katrina. It is an event that attracts thousands of people, it has exposure all over the world, and it puts a highlight that weekend on New Orleans as a destination.

Mardi Gras will set us back on the path to economic revitalization. Millions of tax dollars will flow back and help pave the way to providing the opportunity for every one of our citizens to come home from all over the United States.

We just want to make sure that everything is right as people come back, ... You want them to have the full New Orleans experience.

We are delighted that Tom Benson decided to return to New Orleans and play the 2006 season in the Superdome. This was a very positive step in our rebuilding efforts and has already provided an enormous boost to the spirits of our community. Our group will work closely with the Saints to provide support at all levels -- selling suites and season tickets, identifying creative sponsorship arrangements, and generally working as hard as we can to help them succeed here.

When you spend $27,000 to send your child to Kingswood-Oxford, you are sending them for one reason only - to prepare them for the next level of education. That's it. So, our expectation is that our children have to compete for the same spots at the same schools.

When you see estimates of New Orleans not getting power back or water flowing for six or eight months, that is not the part of the city where tourists go.

Tourism doesn't just happen. We have a damaged brand.

The really positive thing long-term is, the core of our infrastructure of the $5 billion to $8 billion tourism industry remained intact, ... As odd as it may sound right now, we are optimistic that this recovery is not only going to happen, its going to happen well and we're going to have a great city going again.

We were surprised at the announcement, because it requires a very complex business calculation. It has an awful lot of hurdles at the state level.

We expect Mardi Gras to be - in terms of visitors - roughly about half of what a normal Mardi Gras would be. Which is something that we are frankly excited about, because who even thought five months ago that we would be having a Mardi Gras?

We expect it to be a real catalyst for recapturing some market share that was lost by the building of all the new centers in other cities.

The tourist infrastructure is standing up well and will rebound before the rest of the city, ... the great issue is when the city will have basic services back to manage visitors. We will all work hard to make sure the time frame is pushed as early as possible, but only if public safety and basic human issues have been addressed.

So this really, for us, is the new birth of New Orleans, our culture and our economics all at the same time.

You're looking at 50,000 people coming into the city for the game. You're looking at hotel rooms over a minimum of three days for those 50,000 people. So that's huge.

It's like a big hand came down and protected historic buildings.

Damage assessments are forthcoming but early views are very optimistic, ... Unconfirmed secondary sources report that the center has suffered minor window breakage and wind damage. Water damage is limited to two halls and is very manageable at this time.

The interior will require considerable cleaning and renovation,

In New Orleans, people live for food and it's going to be one of the first things as people come back.