State tourism official touts 50 million visitors in 2004

Tuesday, March 22, 2005 | 10:59 a.m.

Nevada Commission on Tourism Executive Director Bruce Bommarito paid a visit to lawmakers with a nifty statistic in his back pocket: a record 50.5 million visitors to the state in 2004.

It was the first time the 50 million visitor barrier was broken after the state came close just prior to the 9/11 disaster.

Bommarito made presentations to the budget committees of the Assembly and the Senate Monday, pleading the commission's case for additional marketing dollars and giving an update on how the state leveraged advertising and Internet contacts to draw people to rural Nevada. Bommarito said he couldn't do it without the help of tourism leaders statewide.

"We're like the strand that runs through all these marketing pearls," Bommarito said. "We're the only statewide agency that touches everybody."

Bommarito said he wants to convince lawmakers to fund an Internet booking system to serve rural Nevada.

"Many of the big companies in Las Vegas and Reno can do this on their own, but rural Nevada doesn't have the resources," he said.

He said one of the commission's major goals is to develop a reservation system for golf, rooms and outfitters for outdoor recreation in the rural counties.

The state also is ready to press forward on additional television advertising, an expenditure that in the past two years has helped push visitation numbers to record levels, he said.

The 2004 visitor count exceeded projections by about 500,000, Bommarito said. The 50.5 million total injected an estimated $40 billion into the state's economy, including $10 billion in gross gaming revenue.

"These people who are visiting us aren't day-trippers," he said. "They're spending time in hotels and they're gambling. We know that when we get hunters going to Winnemucca and Elko that they're going to spend some of their time going to casinos."

The state reported 49.6 million visitors in 2000. But after the 9/11 attacks, the state reported visitation of 48.4 million in 2001, 48.1 million in 2002 and 48.6 million in 2003.

Bommarito attributed some of the increase to the state's "Nevada: Wide Open" advertising campaign developed by DRGM Advertising. The campaign has generated a 42.7 percent increase in responses from ad viewers who are directed to an Internet site and encouraged to get travel guides promoting rural Nevada's adventure sports activities.

A state survey said 52 percent of those surveyed said the materials influenced their decision to visit. Internet site visits were up 12.3 percent last year over 2003 and the commission estimated that it generated $22.4 million worth of unpaid media in news and travel magazine stories generated with familiarization trips for out-of-state journalists.

In addition to marketing to adventure sports participants, the state has made a major push overseas through offices in China, Great Britain, Mexico, Japan and South Korea.