Getting a handle on international tourism

Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005 | 9:54 a.m.

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- An official with the Commerce Department says it is time to roll out the red carpet for international visitors.

Richard Champley, senior market research analyst for the department's Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, told about 250 attendees at an aviation forecast conference on Monday that about 49 million visitors from overseas are expected to visit the United States in 2005, up from about 46 million last year, a 6.5 percent increase. The total is predicted to reach 52 million in 2006.

But a McCarran International Airport official at the conference said some of the Commerce Department's statistics aren't specific enough to gauge how much of that volume is headed for Las Vegas.

Scott Russell, market development coordinator at McCarran, said the sampling of a survey of international air travelers provides too little information to gauge whether foreign visitors will come to Las Vegas with the same fervor as those visiting other destinations within the United States.

The Commerce Department said about 392,000 people visited Las Vegas in 2004 from Great Britain, Las Vegas' largest overseas market. Las Vegas was the third-busiest U.S. city for British tourists behind New York and Orlando, Fla.

Japan, the No. 2 overseas market for Las Vegas, sent 217,000 travelers to Las Vegas, tying with San Francisco for fifth among U.S. destinations.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is targeting foreign markets as a means of delivering more tourists to the city. The authority, McCarran and other tourism experts have long suspected that the Commerce Department's statistics and forecasts show fewer visitors than there actually are because so many enter gateway cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco and aren't counted among those who visit.

Champley said data on visits to cities are based on in-flight surveys conducted of travelers coming into the United States. But Champley said only three-tenths of 1 percent of the people who have nonimmigrant arrival and departure records take the survey.

While the survey has been conducted monthly since 1983 and involves travelers on 60 airlines traveling through 15 U.S. gateway cities, including Las Vegas, critics say the the sample is too small to record enough significant information that can be used to project how many visitors are headed for Southern Nevada.

Champley admitted that part of the problem is that the office is underfunded and that gathering that type of data isnt a federal priority.

Champley said 46 million people arrived in the United States from foreign countries in 2004, with the top five markets Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, Japan and Germany representing about 76 percent of those visits.

The top markets include 13.8 million from Canada, 11.9 million from Mexico, 4.3 million from Great Britain, 3.7 million from Japan, 775,000 from France and 326,000 from China.

The Nevada Commission on Tourism is focusing much of its recent marketing efforts on encouraging tourism from China.

Richard N. Velotta can be reached at 259-4061 or at velotta@ lasvegassun.com.