Louisiana has an ambitious timeline to restore hotels, tourism services and the arts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as it prepares to request $1bn from Congress to lure back visitors and employees.

“We need tourism to recover quickly,” said Angele Davis, secretary for Louisiana's department of culture, recreation and tourism. “The entire retail, banking, professional and services industries in New Orleans depend on more than $5bn of annual direct visitor spending.”

The department plans to submit a proposal to Congress in the next few weeks that will outline how funding will be used to revive Louisiana's “cultural economy”, such as tourism, the arts, parks and museums.

Tourism is Louisiana's largest industry after health care. It generated $9.9bn in spending last year from 25.5m visitors. It accounted for 120,000 jobs, of which 81,000 were based in New Orleans. The city loses more than $15m in direct traveller spending each day that tourism cannot operate.

As part of a plan outlined by Ms Davis at a travel industry conference this week in Chicago, the department expects 75 per cent of hotels in New Orleans, or about 21,000 downtown hotel rooms, to be operational by the end of the month, and 95 per cent to be open by the end of December. Most hotels in Louisiana are already booked by emergency workers and evacuees for several months. But Ms Davis said leases with relief agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency should not extend beyond six months to allow for visitors.

Reuniting families and facilitating the return of tourism employees are important elements of the plan. Louisiana is setting up temporary housing in state parks and intends to offer employment-support services such as transport and child care.

Ms Davis said Louisiana's unique culture and heritage would be the engine for recovery. The department of culture has initiatives including a website to “rescue Louisiana's cultural assets”, to bring artists back and to collect information about cultural resources affected by Katrina.

Louisiana will spend $1.5m on a regional public relations campaign in the next three months. A larger national public relations campaign will follow in the spring.

“Sixty-five per cent of the state has not been impacted by the hurricane. We can encourage economic recovery by highlighting that cities like Shreveport and Lafayette are open for business,” said Ms Davis.

The Sugar Bowl football game held in January in New Orleans has been cancelled but the Mardi Gras festival is on schedule for February. So are spring events such as the jazz festival.

The convention centre will be closed until March to large business meetings, but small groups will be encouraged to return in January.