Goodman to talk tourism at meeting of mayors in D.C.

Judy Odierna

Monday, Jan. 20, 2003 | 10:57 a.m.

Oscar Goodman will join 300 of his fellow mayors from across the country in Washington this week to talk about ways to increase the lifeblood of the Las Vegas economy: tourism.

The Las Vegas mayor is expected to help lead discussions about travel and tourism at the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Wednesday through Friday.

The Las Vegas Valley saw losses of $852 million in 2001 and more than $1.6 billion in 2002 in the aftermath of the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a report by Global Insight, an economic and financial forecasting company.

As a member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Travel and Tourism Task Force, Goodman helped develop an action plan in October that could be taken to the Bush administration and Congress.

"I was one of the four panelists," Goodman said. "Even though Las Vegas was in the top four in loss of income, my perception is that we are healthier here and have been able to rebound more quickly than other cities."

At the conference members of the task force will highlight portions of the Global Insight report, which details the state of travel and tourism in metropolitan areas and the tourism aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Adam Sacks, senior principal at Global Insight, said the company based its figures on hotel room sales.

"The 2002 estimates were obtained by using data through the September," he said. "Data on hotel sales gave us a good idea on how the year was going so far. Hotel sales are a reasonably good proxy for other components of the tourism sector as well."

The report determined that travel and tourism generated $272 billion in gross metropolitan product in the top 100 metro areas in 2000. Those numbers had a significant drop in 2001, when the figure fell to $259 billion, and it was expected to drop to $245 billion for 2002.

Travel and tourism is the largest share of the gross metropolitan economy in the Las Vegas area. Tourism generated $14.8 billion for the Las Vegas area in 2000 but has dropped 22 percent since then.

In 2001 the tourism industry only generated $13.3 billion, and it was expected to generate only $11.5 billion for 2002.

"After the October meeting we sent our action plan to the Bush administration and some key leaders in Congress," Andy Solomon, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said.

The plan called for the establishment of a presidential advisory council on travel and tourism; the increase and restoration of tax incentives to spur business travel; and travel and tourism discussions with national legislators, federal officials and business and media leaders at the conference in Washington.

"There have been some conversations and meetings but nothing formal (such as) a large organized meeting," Solomon said. "It's a very significant issue for cities because it is so important to municipal budgets and the job market."

The nation's 100 largest metro areas had about 4 million jobs related to travel and tourism in 2000. By 2002 that total had dropped to 3.7 million, according to the Global Insight report.

Las Vegas is the metro area with the highest percentage of tourism-related employment. Tourism accounts for 27.3 percent of the gross metro product in the Las Vegas area, and 29.5 percent of the area's employment, according to the report.

"What we really learned is that you are not just talking about your typical travel and tourism jobs like hotels and airlines, it is also the small businesses by the airport or the shoeshine folks or downtown restaurants," Solomon said.