NEW ORLEANS
Ray Liuzza, the New Orleans Convention Center’s stalwart leader who led the organization from its conception through its second major expansion, has died at age 83.
Liuzza, former president and managing partner of the International Hotel, and a public relations executive, championed the 1978 legislation that created the New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, whose mission was to explore the feasibility of building a convention center in New Orleans. In 1979, Liuzza was appointed to the Authority as chairman of the Citizens Referendum Committee, whose efforts led to voter approval of a hotel/motel occupancy tax that funded construction of the convention center.
Through 1988, Liuzza held the positions of commissioner, chairman of the board and executive vice president of the New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, and oversaw the construction of the original Convention Center, which opened in 1984. From 1989 to 1991, Liuzza held dual positions of interim president/general manager of the New Orleans Convention Center and executive vice president of the New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority.
Liuzza was an extremely active and engaged tourism leader. He was a past chairman of the board and president of the New Orleans Hotel-Motel Association, a past director of the Louisiana Hotel-Motel Association, a former member of the Greater New Orleans Tourist and Convention Commission, served on the board of the World Trade Center and helped form the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation. He also helped establish the school of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism at the University of New Orleans.
