Panel against cutting resort rates

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001 | 11:19 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Nevada resorts should not cut their prices to draw more visitors during this economic downturn, a casino official says, and Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt agrees with him.

Ferenc Szony, a Reno casino executive and member of the state Tourism Commission, which is headed by Hunt, said the gaming industry has "a bad habit" of reducing prices when business is stagnant.

"We're already the greatest value of travel destinations," Szony told other members of the commission, which met Wednesday in Las Vegas. The meeting was televised to Carson City.

Cutting prices, Szony said, sparks a war between casinos to feed off each other's business. It takes years to recover from such price wars, he said.

"We have got to hang together," Szony said.

Hunt agreed, saying reducing prices won't help the state tax revenues.

The commission is putting together a marketing package to entice more visitors to come to Nevada and hopes to approach the Interim Finance Committee next Tuesday for a special appropriation.

Hunt, chairwoman of the commission, said there would be a special ad campaign, noting that hotel and motel occupancy is already down since the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

She said everybody knows there's a crisis. The state depends on the sales and the casino taxes to pay the major share of the general fund revenue. And the budget for the state is already tight, she said.

The ad campaign, she said, must persuade people that Nevada is a "safe and comfortable" place.

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