re: Should Lafayette try to be the next New Orleans?

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Should Lafayette try to boos their economy

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Never been to the Port of Lafayette

You have to ask yourself why do people travel for fun?
Most common reasons are:
Swimming (lakes and oceans)
Hiking
Boating/fishing
History/architecture
Food/drink
Sports
Gambling
Antiquing/shopping
Skiing
Arts (theaters, opera, art galleries)
Religion (pilgrimage)

Lafayette is inland and unless they want to develop the Vermillion River into the Next River Walk (think San Antonio), there’s no water based draw. Lafayette isn’t too far from decent fishing and boating, but people serious about those things will stay closer to the action in New Orleans, Lake Charles, Houma, or Grand Isle. They do offer cool airboat tours in the Basin, but that’s cool for like half a day.

Lafayette is in a flat coastal plain, so there’s no skiing, and very limited hiking opportunities.

Lafayette was mostly constructed between 1946 and 1985, so there’s little interesting architecture or cool history stuff around there other than a couple plantations that are a drive away.

It’s not a big enough town to have big time sports or theater options, though the Cajun Dome does attract some big time music acts.

No casinos, and there are already many casinos in the state already closer to Texas and tourist spots in New Orleans.

No important religious sites other than the charming Cathedral.

Laffy has a pretty decent food scene, but pails in comparison to New Orleans just up the road.

In my opinion, the way Lafayette should market itself is as two things:
1. A charming place with live Cajun/Zydeco music and cooky arts (little miniAustin with a Cajun twist). This can be done by developing downtown to be more tourist friendly and aesthetically appealing with more focus on music clubs. Parish Brewery is a huge cultural resource that I would encourage to put a taproom location in the heart of downtown. A partnership with Bayou Rum out in Lacassine would be just gravy. I’d also put a big weekend antiques and farmers market thing downtown a couple days a month. (Gotta hit all the demos)
2. A jumping off point for nature lovers. I would develop more hiking/biking trails through the Atchafalaya basin. Build a series of boardwalks, miles of them, through the swamps (either Lake Martin or the Basin). I would connect these trails with bike trails and lanes that run to Vermilionville Village and then through the University into the heart of downtown.

All of these things take money to build, however, and without a growing and diversified economy, no one would ever invest in such a thing.

Yes boudin bus tours.

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You joke, but this would actually be pretty cool.

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I'm pretty sure that's already a thing.

In order to improve Lafayette in the short term, there needs to be a serious push towards the increase in offerings for tourism.

Lafayette could easily put on 2-3+ more massive festivals on par with Festival International. Many don't realize that F.I. is consistently the 2nd or 3rd largest FREE festival in the world, of its kind.

Lafayette would need to legalize all logical use of marijuana to create an immediate tourism boom as well as the residual effects of the growing music & art scene that would follow.

Traffic is terrible throughout 85% of the city/surrounding areas. Some morons 50 years ago & since decided that 2 land roads were all that would ever be needed & far too many of them are impossible to widen due to property lines/buildings/etc in the way. So, a touring bus/trolley type deal is really all that can be done to help.
All of the various breweries, semi-major attractions (i.e Tabasco, Blue Dog, etc), & local food stops need to band together for type of a quality level booze bus/trolley style tourism offering. There are 10,000s of people that would pay $200+ a pop to get on a party style transport that takes them to a couple boudin shops, a couple of breweries, Tabasco, Swamp Tours/air boat rides, drive-thru daquiri shops (people from outside the area just go crazy to experience this alone-it is still hilarious to me after all these years) etc. over the course of 6-8 hour tour on a seasonally daily basis.

If Lafayette could increase it's regional & national music scene with venues that can effectively hold more than the Hymann center but less than the Cajundome in an area where before/after the concerts people would want to hang around-that would help tremendously as well. Even the creation of a smaller scale 6th St. Austin type of deal isn't impossible for Lafayette. Heck, you could take all the nearly abandoned space by the Northgate mall & create a heck of an atmosphere. A big problem is there's nothing that a roof-top bar/music scene style place gives you to look at in the Lafayette area. There's no skyline worth a damn or natural space like a Red Rocks or Gorge that would be an attractive backdrop.

No businesses are heading to Lafayette any time soon that will add 1,000+ high education/STEM type jobs. So, the whole thing has to be looked at from a quasi-grassroots lens.

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Or visit New Orleans and drive around Norco instead

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You haven't been to Norco, have you? Perhaps 7 miles west to LaPlasss, but not Norco.

City Council there considering adding more crime? I'd ask for BR's help, first.

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So, a touring bus/trolley type deal is really all that can be done to help.
All of the various breweries, semi-major attractions (i.e Tabasco, Blue Dog, etc), & local food stops need to band together for type of a quality level booze bus/trolley style tourism offering. There are 10,000s of people that would pay $200+ a pop to get on a party style transport that takes them to a couple boudin shops, a couple of breweries, Tabasco, Swamp Tours/air boat rides, drive-thru daquiri shops

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Please tell me you’re just trolling this thread