Tourism industry stunned by governor’s latest fireworks

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, Jan. 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The Strip party wasn’t the only place where there were New Year’s Eve fireworks.

On Dec. 31, Gov. Jim Gibbons fired off a news release defending his aborted appointment of a state tourism director and criticized Nevada’s efforts to market the state in Asia.

Gibbons’ latest salvo and Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki’s response coupled with actions taken by the Nevada Tourism Commission last week all but assures that 2009 isn’t going to start out as the happy new year many in the tourism industry are hoping for.

Let’s start with the governor’s appointment. On Christmas Eve, Gibbons issued a news release naming Kirk Montero, the 60-year-old station manager of US Airways at Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

That caught a number of people by surprise, including Krolicki, since state law says the tourism director shall be selected from a list of candidates reviewed by the Tourism Commission, which Krolicki heads.

Montero, incidentally, wasn’t among 67 applicants for the job reviewed by a committee of commissioners.

Krolicki asked for a representative of the attorney general’s office to be present at a Dec. 29 meeting of the commission to give members some options. Should the vetting committee allow Montero’s application to be considered with the other applications? Should the commission press on without Montero’s application? Or should it start everything over, thus wasting about three months of work?

The attorney general’s office offered some options. Yes, the commission could consider Montero’s application — if it wanted to reopen the entire process. Commissioners voted unanimously to go forward without Montero’s application. One commissioner who served on the vetting committee, Ryan Sheltra, said he got a look at Montero’s resume and determined it wouldn’t have even made his top 10 list of applicants, an indication there are some highly qualified people who want the $117,000-a-year job.

When the commission rejected the Montero “appointment,” Gibbons retaliated. On New Year’s Eve, the governor’s office issued a release titled, “Governor Gibbons Challenges Claims of Lt. Governor’s Office.”

In it, Gibbons defended Montero’s appointment: “I believe Kirk is uniquely qualified for this position because he has intimate knowledge of visitor travel patterns into our state, and we need someone to head the Nevada Commission on Tourism that can hit the ground running, we need someone for that position that has hands-on experience, not a Harvard MBA.”

No offense to Montero, but I doubt he’s the only person with intimate knowledge of visitor traffic patterns into Nevada.

The release goes on to say Montero’s application was hand-delivered to Krolicki’s office “long before the application deadline.”

In fact, Montero’s resume may have arrived even before former Director Tim Maland resigned since Gibbons had indicated he wanted him in that job. That’s one of the reasons Maland left — he didn’t have the governor’s support.

But Krolicki said even if the resume arrived before the deadline, the person delivering it would have been told to send it to the Tourism Commission’s office, just like the 67 other applications that came in and were properly addressed.

Gibbons also alluded to a proposal to combine the Tourism Commission with the Economic Development Commission. Although the release isn’t as emphatic about that (“If it is in the best interest of our state to combine Tourism and Economic Development, that is what we will do”), his proposed budget considers just that, under a single director.

Does that mean Montero or whomever the Tourism Commission recommends would head the merged agencies? Or would that fall to Economic Development Director Mike Skaggs, who took that job last summer and has no experience in tourism? Either way, somebody would be out of a job, and Krolicki slowed the hiring process so that a tourism director wouldn’t be put on the payroll before being shown the door.

Meanwhile, tourism leaders across the state have begun talking to state lawmakers, encouraging them not to merge the agencies, which have different audiences and different skills.

The Gibbons release concluded with what may be the most outrageous claim — the state’s marketing efforts in Asia are a waste of taxpayer dollars.

When Nevada became the first government entity in the United States to be licensed to market itself as a tourism destination to the Chinese it put the state at a tremendous advantage.

That license enables Nevada to tell its story to millions of Chinese consumers who have the disposable income available to travel anywhere in the world. Since Nevada won that license in 2004, other states have tried to get the same foothold. So far, only Hawaii has succeeded.

Does the governor really think this is a waste of money, especially when one considers that every dollar spent by the Tourism Commission yields $20 in return?

Many companies across the state — Las Vegas Sands, MGM Mirage and Wynn Resorts come to mind — have invested heavily in the Chinese tourism market because they know the potential. A number of smaller companies don’t have the same wherewithal, but rely on the marketing efforts of the commission to generate opportunity for them.

Tourism Commission officials already have trimmed more than $222,000 from its fiscal year 2009 China budget originally set at $530,000.

Abandoning Asian marketing would be a tragic loss for the state.

Still No. 1

If you’re looking for a little good tourism news, a recent survey by Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Travel Leaders may fill the bill.

Las Vegas remains the top domestic destination in the survey of 547 owners, managers and agents of the company formerly known as Carlson Wagonlit Travel Associates from across the United States. The survey is based on actual bookings made to date for 2009.

Agents were asked to name up to five destinations. Las Vegas was the destination of choice for 61.4 percent of the agents, followed by Orlando, Fla. (60.8 percent); Maui, Hawaii (39.9 percent); Honolulu (36.3 percent); New York City (31.3 percent); Phoenix-Scottsdale (19 percent); Anchorage, Alaska (15.9 percent); Washington, D.C. (15 percent); San Francisco (14.8 percent); and Chicago (13.6 percent).

Last year, Las Vegas headed the list and was named by 71.5 percent of the agents, still leading Orlando, which was named 63.6 percent of the time.

The biggest jump in the domestic survey was a 10-spot leap by Chicago to No. 10, and the company is attributing some of that to the increased interest in President-elect Barack Obama’ hometown, which is hosting “Aztec World” exhibit at the Field Museum, the world premiere of “Harry Potter: The Exhibition” at the Science and Industry Museum and activities involving the bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth.

On the international side, cruises and international destinations were grouped together. Caribbean cruises led that survey, followed by Cancun, Riviera Maya and Puerto Vallarta, all in Mexico; Mediterranean cruises; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Rome; Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; Cabo San Lucas and Los Cabos, Mexico; and Mexico cruises and London, tied for 10th.

Other survey trends include the fact that the majority of travelers, 65.2 percent, are booking trips of six to seven days and that to top the way leisure travelers are saving money is to be flexible with their travel dates.

A sobering side of the survey: Only 11.1 percent of those surveyed said bookings are higher than the previous year, 21.8 percent saying they’re about the same and 67.1 percent saying they’re lower.

Finally, the survey asked about their personal outlook for travel in 2009. The survey said 52.3 percent were optimistic, 19.7 percent were pessimistic and the rest were neither.

Southwest sale

No word yet from Southwest Airlines on how many people bought plane tickets to Las Vegas during a two-day sale the last two days of 2008.

The discount airline, McCarran International Airport’s busiest carrier and whose largest station is in Las Vegas, offered tickets of up to half off the regular price. The sale was on round-trip travel to and from Las Vegas.

The sale, billed as a “one-of-a-kind discount,” enabled customers to fly to or from Las Vegas between Jan. 13 and March 11 at the lower fares.

From January 2008 through March, about 2 million passengers flew to or from Las Vegas on Southwest.

Richard N. Velotta covers tourism for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at 259-4061 or at [email protected].