Slowdown prompts more Vegas tourism ads

Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2001 | 10:51 a.m.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is shifting funds from its construction fund to boost its annual advertising budget by $10 million to $59.3 million.

The action, approved in Tuesday's meeting of the LVCVA board of directors, comes at a time when the agency got its look at how much room tax revenue will be off because of the tourism downturn resulting from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Jim Gans, the LVCVA's vice president of administrative operations, said the agency expects to collect $11.8 million less in room taxes than projected through the end of December. His projections are based on the first tabulations of tax revenues since the attacks.

For September, gross room tax revenue was off $2.2 million from September 2000, a 20.3 percent decrease.

Tax collections lag about two months behind the current month and the LVCVA learned where it stood for September at the end of last month.

Although the hotel occupancy rate has climbed gradually since the attacks, tax revenue is expected to be off, since resorts discounted room rates in a bid to increase traffic.

Clark County's hotel occupancy fell by about 13.8 percent from September 2000 to September 2001 but the difference was even more dramatic because the total room inventory went up by 1.4 percent during the same period.

October's tax revenues are bound to be off by even more than September's for three reasons: midweek visitation plunged that month with more than 250 meeting cancellations and postponements; there was a full month of reduced average room rates; and, by comparison, the occupancy of October 2000 was the fourth-strongest month of the fiscal year, so the downturn will be even more dramatic.

In an effort to boost visitation, LVCVA board members voted unanimously to spend an additional $10 million on advertising during the current fiscal year ending June 30.

Billy Vassiliadis, chief executive for R&R Partners, the LVCVA's advertising agency, and Rossi Ralenkotter, vice president of marketing for the LVCVA, explained how the city's ad efforts have evolved from reacting to the crisis to developing a plan that has broadened in scope.

R&R's most recent ad campaign, centered around the "freedom to get away from it all" brand position, is being expanded to address a national audience instead of just the spot markets of Southern California, San Francisco, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and Chicago. More than half the average daily airline seats coming into Las Vegas are from those markets. In addition, some of those cities are within driving distance of Las Vegas.Now, the LVCVA is ready to take the next step and begin a heavy marketing campaign to the rest of the country.

Vassiliadis said his company is recommending spot network and cable broadcasting buys, radio traffic sponsorships, 39-inch newspaper ads and online media with the objective of convincing customers to travel to Las Vegas immediately and build demand and momentum for the summer months.

The national program will include spots on 12 national cable networks and during the early-morning network news shows, like "Good Morning America" and "Today." Ads also are planned in USA Today and on a variety of travel, entertainment, new content and search engine Internet sites.

Vassiliadis also said R&R is negotiating with ESPN for Las Vegas to sponsor Winter Olympic Game highlights in February.

In addition to the national campaign, R&R plans to keep up the spot market program with traffic radio sponsorships, some network and cable buys and print ads in daily newspapers.