With Gibbons in office, ‘Tourism Conference Lite’ may be only hope

By Richard N. Velotta (contact)

Fri, Sep 4, 2009 (3 a.m.)

It’s been an important gathering in Nevada for nearly 25 years. Now, since Gov. Jim Gibbons has taken over as the state’s chief executive, the Governor’s Tourism Conference has evaporated.

To be fair, it isn’t entirely Gibbons’ fault that economic hard times forced the cancellation of what would have been the silver anniversary of the conference last year. But many in the industry are wishing the governor would stand up for the state’s most important industry.

Much of what the Nevada Tourism Commission does represents an investment that pays dividends to the state in the long run.

Commission officials have said that for every dollar spent, it gets more than $20 back.

The ad buys and Web site construction have led to visits by tourists who have a choice of where they vacation. Visitors who choose to see Nevada spend money that generates sales tax and room tax revenue.

The money spent on familiarization tours for foreign journalists is an investment in “free media” that the state receives in news stories generated about the state.

The commission also has worked on making Nevada magazine a self-sustaining venture, but has had to cut staff to do it.

One expenditure the commission made that didn’t generate a return was the governor’s conference, a three-day gathering normally held in December, usually in Reno or Las Vegas.

The conference was started by then-Gov. Richard Bryan in 1983. In its best years, it brought close to 1,000 tourism professionals together to talk shop. Speakers and panels addressed major tourism issues of the day; educational and inspirational presentations aimed to make industry leaders smarter and more efficient; awards recognized top people in the field.

When the bad economy started crushing the state, and Gibbons became determined to cut the budget, the conference became expendable. At about the time Gibbons was considering a special legislative session last fall to plug budget holes, the Tourism Commission staff made the difficult decision to cancel the 2008 Reno event, which was to be a 25th anniversary celebration. It wasn’t the kind of message tourism officials wanted to send while encouraging other conventions to press ahead with their own events in hard times.

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, who heads the Tourism Commission, estimated that with attendance likely to be down because of the bad economy, the state was looking at trimming tens of thousands of dollars in money badly needed by other departments.

Canceling the event and not spending the money seemed like the logical way to go, but some are bitter that Gibbons didn’t think highly enough of the industry or the conference to try to salvage it.

So what happens next?

At last week’s Tourism Commission meeting, Krolicki indicated it isn’t likely there will be a conference this year. Even Dann Lewis, the commission’s new director, said he was “appalled” by how much would have to come out of the budget to stage a conference.

But Krolicki didn’t close the door on having some kind of meeting. He suggested a smaller-scale and shorter Governor’s Conference Lite to at least get industry representatives together.

That’s not unprecedented. Every spring the Tourism Commission puts on its Rural Roundup in smaller communities, and the topics discussed are almost exclusively small-town issues.

Another idea under consideration is staging the governor’s conference with an existing tourism-related show. Commission officials figure that if the conference tags along with something like the Nevada Resort Association or the Nevada Restaurant Association, it could get the attendance that would help both shows.

It would be ironic if the conference teamed with the restaurant association since restaurateurs broke away from the original governor’s conference to develop its more specialized show.

Krolicki said if a Governor’s Conference Lite is in the cards for 2009, a decision would have to be made within a few weeks to organize it, and he encouraged commissioners to talk among themselves and their constituencies to see if it makes sense to try it.

Commissioners also decided not to pick a fight with online travel agencies such as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz over whether they should be paying more in taxes even though the result would be more revenue for the state and, indirectly, the commission.

In May the board agreed to look at whether the state should take companies to court over the practice of paying the room tax based on the amount the companies got from their resort partners instead of the amount customers pay.

Some courts have ruled the tax should be based on what the person who stayed in the room paid, while others say the online companies are intermediaries, not innkeepers, and shouldn’t pay tax on the final room price.

Hundreds of millions of dollars could be at stake.

By the way, VEGAS.com, a sister company of In Business Las Vegas, is in the business of selling hotel rooms online so it would be subject to the tax policy.

Although not every commissioner was in agreement on whether to chase the potentially greater tax revenue, they were in agreement that other state offices would be better equipped to tackle those taxation philosophies, so the ball will move to someone else’s court.

New Marriott

With all the attention focused on monstrous resort properties such as CityCenter’s Aria, Fontainebleau and Cosmopolitan, we sometimes lose track of the small nongaming hotels that open in our valley.

On Sept. 1 Marriott opened the 120-suite SpringHill Suites by Marriott at 1481 Paseo Verde Parkway.

Campbell Lodging Inc. of Brea, Calif., is the franchise operator and also runs the TownePlace Suites next door.

The new hotel has all the familiar Marriott amenities, and SpringHill Suites, a brand launched in 1998, has more than 200 properties in the United States and Canada.

New Seven Wonders

Awhile back, I told you about the New Seven Wonders of Nature, an international popularity contest to identify the top natural wonders of the world.

Organizers of the program have trimmed the list to 28 semifinalists and are soliciting votes.

One such wonder is in Southern Nevada’s back yard — the Grand Canyon. The operators of Grand Canyon West, the closest Grand Canyon tourism operator to Las Vegas, has embraced the Seven Wonders competition.

In the weeks ahead, the attractions will be listed with votes determining the Top 14 finalists and the Bottom 14. Organizers also promise to tell which locations get the most votes from outside the destination’s country, which attractions moved up the fastest from the previous week and which attraction is most appealing to men versus women and to young voters or old voters.

The Grand Canyon is the only U.S. destination to make the 28 semifinalists.

No more Cuba for Allegiant

A few months ago, Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air flew its planes to where few Americans have traveled — Cuba.

The airline was involved in a U.S. program to offer charter flights to Cubans who have escaped to the United States so they could visit families.

But last week Allegiant announced it was getting out. It wasn’t that the routes weren’t profitable, but they were taking a toll on flight crews.

“While our Cuba flying has been and continues to be profitable, these programs are exposing the airline and its people to operational complexities inconsistent with our operating philosophy,” Allegiant CEO Maurice Gallagher said in a news release.

“Keeping things simple is a key attribute to our business model and since we are not short of profitable opportunities consistent with operational simplicity, we decided the sensible thing was to remain true to our proven operating philosophy and return our people and aircraft to such efforts.”

What happens here ...

Three tourism catchphrases — including the multiple-award-winning “What happens here, stays here” campaign for Las Vegas, developed by R&R Partners — are in the running for Madison Avenue’s Advertising Walk of Fame.

You can vote for your favorite ad phrase atadvertisingweek.com/content.php?cid=fame.

Virginia and New York are among tourism entities nominated, with “Virginia Is for Lovers” and “I Love New York” in the mix. (“I Love New York,” incidentally, was developed by the Nevada Tourism Commission’s new director, Dann Lewis.)

Some other product brands also in the competition are The New York Times’ “All the news that’s fit to print,” McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It,” Intel’s “Intel Inside,” Dunkin’ Donuts’ “Time to make the donuts,” Subway’s “Eat Fresh,” Panasonic’s “Ideas for life,” L’Oreal’s “Because you’re worth it” and Nike’s “Just do it.”

On YouTube

The U.S. Small Business Administration has begun posting some of its informational videos on the popular Web site YouTube to connect with young entrepreneurs.

Messages on entrepreneurship, the importance of small business in the nation’s economy and information on programs and services are available atyoutube.com/sba.

The Small Business Administration started with a 60-second introduction to the agency and a 10-part series coproduced by the U.S. Postal Service called “Delivering Success.

The agency promises that more videos are on the way on topics such as using Recovery Act loan programs, government contracting opportunities and how to start and grow a small business.

Richard N. Velotta covers tourism, technology and small business for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at 259-4061 or at rick.velotta@lasvegassun.com.