Letter: Room tax should be increased to pay for needs

Monday, May 9, 2005 | 9:05 a.m.

I am a 57-year resident of Las Vegas and before I retired, I was a general manager in the convention industry and traveled extensively. Of all the major convention cities, Las Vegas has the lowest room tax. A 1 percent increase would take care of the law enforcement needs, educational concerns and many other public projects needing financial support.

The tourists would still come. By far, we have the most rooms of other convention cities, and we have the best entertainment and fine dining. As for the non-convention occupancy, which annually fills between 85 and 90 percent of the rooms, room tax is not a priority concern for visitors when they are budgeting for a few days of gambling. If the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is right in saying that today's high gas prices are not a concern for tourists, that they will come anyway, then it is a no-brainer that a 1 percent or maybe even a 2 percent increase in the room tax would not keep people away.

Why should hotels oppose this idea? They wouldn't pay the extra tax, the customer would. Look at what hotel-casinos pay in taxes for their out-of-state properties. Most hotels in every other state would be tickled to death to have an occupancy rate as high as ours.

It's mind boggling to see how much time legislators spend each session talking about taxes. This room tax increase would help that problem, too.

Our visitor rate increases yearly. With the amount of rooms we have occupied at the room-tax percentage we have (9 percent versus 17 percent in Houston, 14.9 percent in Chicago, 12.5 percent in Boston, etc.), you are talking about some very serious money that we are flat missing out on.

GARY SILVA