How New Orleans & Company Showcased Its Value to Lodging Partners

For many years, New Orleans & Company has invited local hotels, inns, and B&Bs to share seasonal specials for the holidays, where they eagerly await the arrival of Cajun Santa Claus, "Papa Noel." Traditionally, these offers lived on a static "Deals" page of NewOrleans.com. While helpful for travelers, this approach pushed users off the website to complete their booking, limiting visibility of the performance and revenue impact of this promotion.

In 2025, New Orleans partnered with Ripe to transform its annual Papa Noel promotion into a trackable, on-platform experience that could definitively showcase the value the DMO brings to its lodging partners.

The Challenge

Because New Orleans' long-standing process of sending lodging reservations away from their website made it impossible to measure success or attribute revenue to the DMO, they were looking for a solution to:

• Showcase the lodging promotions in a cohesive way

• Provide lodging reservations within their ecosystem

• Create visibility into the bookings these offers generated

• Streamline the process by which suppliers submit Papa Noel offers

Solution & Implementation

Unified Supplier Communication

Ripe and the New Orleans team crafted a clear, step-by-step email for all lodging suppliers that outlined how to join the Papa Noel promotion, submit their offers, and ensure eligibility for the program.

Dedicated Papa Noel Website Landing Page

A branded website landing page was built by the team at Ripe to highlight each property participating in the Papa Noel promotion, displaying their holiday packages in a consistent, traveler-friendly format. In addition, a microsite was built to highlight holiday events, traditions, restaurants, and shopping in New Orleans.

Value-Add Incentive: $50 Gift Card

To elevate the promotion and encourage longer stays, New Orleans offered a $50 in-market gift card to any traveler booking at least a two-night stay during the promotional window.

Seamless On-Platform Booking

All offers were integrated directly into the Ripe ITA platform, allowing New Orleans to accurately measure bookings, revenue, and traveler engagement—something not previously possible.

Success By The Numbers

The campaign, set to run December – January, has already seen strong traveler engagement. Early metrics include:

Supplier Participation & Impact

• 34 hotels submitted offers and participated in the promotion.

• Suppliers expressed enthusiasm and eagerness to be featured in the booking experience hosted on NewOrleans.com.

• Collaboration from both suppliers and Ripe's lodging services team made rapid setup possible and ensured that travelers had a wide variety of holiday packages to choose from.

We'd love to show you how Ripe's ITA platform attributes lodging revenue to DMO efforts. Book your demo today.