LVCVA renews international marketing deals

Wednesday, June 11, 2003 | 11:21 a.m.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has renewed contracts for marketing representation in Britain, Germany, Japan and South Korea.

The LVCVA board of directors on Tuesday approved four two-year contracts paying a total of about $1 million a year to Cellet Travel Services Ltd., London; Mangum Management GmbH, Munich; Okada Associates, Tokyo; and International Tourism Network, Seoul. Each company will receive amounts ranging from $127,500 a year to $364,000 a year.

Under terms of the four agreements, the representatives will promote Las Vegas events to markets in their respective regions. The representative in Britain also will market in France, the German company also will work in Italy and has a business relationship with an office in Australia and the representative in Japan will cover all of Southeast Asia.

The Nevada Commission on Tourism is contributing funds to three of the contracts and the international contacts will promote rural and statewide events through the representatives in Britain, Japan and South Korea.

Terry Jicinsky, senior vice president of marketing for the LVCVA, said now is the time for Las Vegas to make its presence known internationally, when tourism trends are expected to swing upward.

Travel from Asia was down as much as 40 percent following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a mild recovery in 2002 was slowed by the outbreak of the war with Iraq and the emergence of the SARS virus. While domestic travel came to a standstill in some regions of Asia when the SARS outbreak was at its worst, some analysts suggested that the United States would ultimately benefit because some travelers were shunning China, Hong Kong and other areas hardest hit by the disease.

"The United Kingdom is still the shining star when it comes to international travel," Jicinsky said.

Virgin Atlantic Airlines has announced that it plans to add a third nonstop round-trip flight between London and Las Vegas in September. On the Asian front, Singapore Airlines discontinued its service between Hong Kong and Las Vegas in April, but Japan Airlines has returned to normal operations after cancelling some of its flights between Las Vegas and Tokyo in April and May.

Jicinsky said South Korea is a market with potential because it has a better economy than most of the rest of Asia and a populace that is interested in traveling to the United States, particularly Las Vegas.