Nevada promotes its rugged side

Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2002 | 11:22 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Nevada has the Las Vegas Strip, Reno-Sparks and the south shore of Lake Tahoe. And 100,000 or so more square miles of rugged vastness.

The Nevada Commission on Tourism is betting more than $3 million that there are people who would just as soon climb a rock face or surf a sand dune as toss dice.

"Nevada: Bring It On," is the theme of an edgy advertising campaign unveiled this month.

"Everybody knows Nevada has gaming," said Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, who is the tourism commission chairwoman. "We've underplayed the primitive aspect of what we have out there."

The campaign promotes activities such as dropping by helicopter to ski virgin snow near Elko, slipping down sand dunes in Winnemucca and climbing cliffs at Red Rock Canyon west of Las Vegas - all to woo active Generation Xers.

"Keep in mind the demographics of this group," Hunt said. "They're young and wild and crazy and they still have that high disposable income."

The commission is buying some $1.5 million in advertising through June 30 and will buy about $2 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported Tuesday.

The advertisements created by the Reno office of R&R Partners after about a year of research are being unveiled in two-page spreads in national adventure magazines such as Outside, National Geographic Adventure and Blue.

It replaces the 15-year-old campaign, "Discover Both Sides of Nevada," which pictured beautiful outdoor scenes, but still played off the state's key industry. The new spots don't refer to gambling.

They'll appear soon in newspapers in Sacramento and Salt Lake City, both key drive markets for Nevada.

The campaign also involves bringing tour operators and travel writers to Nevada.

Tourism Commission member Ferenc Szony, president and CEO at the Sands Regency Casino and Hotel in Reno, said the panel has learned that the traditional Reno and Las Vegas customers typically won't spend extra time visiting rural Nevada.

However, customers lured to Nevada for its more adventurous side are likely to spend a day or two in Reno or Las Vegas, he said.

"What we find in many cases, Las Vegas and Reno tend to be the gateways to those more rural sections of Nevada," Szony said.

The new campaign doesn't attract the traditional customer," he said. "But really, for the future, we just can't attract the traditional customer."

Bruce Bommarito, executive director of the Nevada Commission on Tourism, said the adventure travel market is relatively undeveloped in Nevada.

"A lot of people didn't think of us as that," he said. "This type of person wasn't coming here before. This is an untapped market."

The Travel Industry Association of America reported that there are 93 million Americans who prefer adventure travel, most of them living in the Western United States, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.

They have an average household income of $49,000, higher than the national average of $42,000. They tend to stay longer and spend more on trips, from $1,275 for hard adventurers to $820 for soft adventurers.

A new adventure guide describing where to find these outdoor destinations is due in March, and the commission has already received 2,900 requests for it.

Will Hunt be out there with her tent and camp boots?

"My idea of roughing it is no room service," she told The Associated Press by telephone from Las Vegas.

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On the Net:

Nevada Commission on Tourism Web site: http://www.travelnevada.com