Oil Spill Taking Its Toll On Tourism

From the capital city of Baton Rouge to the historic district of Lake Charles, right down to the nightlife in New Orleans, tourism is getting shellacked by the oil spill off the Louisiana Coast.

"The oil spill will certainly severely impact the area, but it has not closed it down completely yet," said Renee Kientz of the St. Tammany Tourist Commission.

To assist in tourism recovery and promotion efforts, BP has awarded the state a $15 million grant -- $5 million of which will go directly to a coalition of seven coastal parishes most directly affected.

"Fifteen million dollars sounds like a lot of money to an average person, but it's really not very much when you're talking about advertising dollars and marketing," Kientz said.

Louisiana is home to 40 percent of the wetlands in the lower 48 states, so swamp tours are one of the prime tourist draws and are still filling up. However, there is a category four worry looming on the horizon.

"Hurricanes are a wild card, we don?t know what is going to happen with them. They could disperse the oil, because they are a lot of energy and they disperse things very well. But they could also drive oil into inland areas that don?t normally have exposure," said School of Coast and Environment at Louisiana State University Dean Christopher D?Elia.

"Once it does get back here, the job of cleaning that up would be pretty much monumental if even possible," said Cajun Encounter Swamp Tours Boat Captain Drew Mire.

Charter fishing also hooks the tourism dollar. Captain Mike Gallo has been taking visitors out for 13 years and he?s holding his breath, because they?ve already closed and reopened his territory once.