Students promote tourism in Nevada with social media

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, Dec. 17, 2010 | 3 a.m.

It was just like old times in Reno last week.

Twenty-seven years after then-Gov. Richard Bryan formed the Nevada Tourism Commission and organized the first Governor’s Conference on Tourism, the organization observed its 25th anniversary at the Peppermill Resort.

That happened because the killer recession forced the commission and the industry to retreat for two years.

But with visitation statistics on the rise and a hint of optimism in the air, the commission and its staff pulled together Governor’s Conference Lite, packing nine panels and presentations, a quarterly commission meeting and a tribute lunch for Bryan into 1½ days.

This year’s conference had a different feel from years past. Many of the same leaders attended, although not as many as in the go-go years of the late 1990s and early 2000s. About 250 people signed up for this year’s event compared with close to 1,000 back when.

Because the conference was organized in a series of general sessions instead of splitting it into breakout meetings, it was easy to gauge the level of interest — and most of the seats were filled throughout the event. It seemed that people attending this year’s conference were hungry for information.

One event that had a low turnout — and, in fairness, it wasn’t actually part of the conference because it filled time between the end of the commission meeting and the opening session of the conference — was interesting because it provided a snapshot of the future of the state’s tourism industry.

Between Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki’s poundings of the gavel ending the commission meeting and opening the conference, students from UNR’s Reynolds School of Journalism and Center for Advanced Media Studies presented a proposal to promote the Governor’s Conference in 2011.

Calling their agency “BluePRint,” in honor of UNR’s school colors, 20 students affiliated with the Public Relations Student Society of America demonstrated what tomorrow’s travelers are going to look like and how to engage them.

They called their promotion “America’s eNVy” (get it?), and it centers around a one-week bus trip from Reno to Las Vegas, curling through less-traveled corners of Nevada, concluding at the host hotel for next year’s Governor’s Conference, which presumably will be in Las Vegas.

The kicker is that the students propose to fill the bus with new media enthusiasts who will fill social media sites and blog about their adventures in Nevada. The group has contacted former USA Today Travel Editor Chris Gray Faust — the Chris Around the World travel blogger — about participating.

Students want to have a contest to fill the bus with creative “changing traveler” participants who will flood Facebook, Twitter and YouTube with images, stories and impressions about the Silver State. The group, under the supervision of Todd Felts, an assistant professor at the Journalism School, has brainstormed about potential corporate sponsors.

The students envision the bus rolling up to the host site of the conference and sharing stories about their adventures in one of the conference’s sessions.

The Tourism Commission and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority know about the power of new media applications.

The commission has been praised for its use of new media, and Google used Nevada’s winter tourism campaign as a case study in how to build a successful online promotion. The authority has seen many of its crazy advertisements — from “What happens here, stays here” to a celebration for Chinchilli Day — go viral on YouTube.

Critics take shots at the LVCVA and its advertising consultant, R&R Partners, all the time, but those marketing experts always seem to be ahead of the curve when it comes to figuring out how to best promote Las Vegas. Say all you want about whether “What happens here, stays here” is appropriate for Las Vegas, but the message produced an undeniable buzz around the city for years.

The commission staff has its own creative leaders, but its foray into new media dominance may have been out of necessity when the Legislature slashed its budget. The commission proudly reminds the public that it returns $31 in revenue to the state for every dollar spent, thanks to efficiencies of the growing new media environment.

The UNR students are representative of tomorrow’s traveler. Kudos to them for offering a proposal to leverage the skills of bloggers to further promote the state.

There was plenty more at the Governor’s Conference. Here’s a short list of what I learned:

• The conference finished in the black. Leaders said they would be happy if it broke even. After all the expenses, Acting Director Larry Friedman said the conference would finish about $6,000 ahead. The commission cut costs by registering people online, sponsoring one luncheon instead of two and not paying speakers honoraria for participating. “We had industry professionals speaking instead of professional speakers,” Friedman said.

• Rural Roundup in Mesquite: One of the commission’s big events each year is its Rural Roundup, a gathering of tourism leaders from rural communities to discuss issues of particular interest to them. Next year, it returns to Clark County (it was in Primm a few years ago), and organizers are trying to coordinate the April 6-8 event with a golf tie-in on Mesquite’s fabulous courses.

• About those airline fees … Why do airlines charge fees and nickel-and-dime passengers instead of just raising fares? Because if they put the added charges into the fare, the revenue would be taxed. It isn’t taxed as a fee. That’s courtesy of speaker Brian Kulpin, vice president of air service, marketing and public affairs at Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

• Why we love international travelers: A quarter of the people who participate in the state’s passport program on U.S. 50, the “loneliest road in America” across the center of Nevada, are international visitors who really love visiting the “est” attractions — the highest, lowest, driest and loneliest places on the planet. That’s from Friedman.

• Dann Lewis was homesick. I asked a number of sources why Tourism Commission Director Lewis suddenly resigned. It was obvious he was frustrated by the state’s budget slashing, but he knew that coming into the job in 2009. Most people close to Lewis said he left because he still had a home in Maine and missed it, never quite getting used to Nevada. Krolicki recommended elevating Friedman for at least six months since state government is in transition and a brutal legislative session is on the horizon. Don’t be surprised if Friedman is named to the job permanently.

• Cease and desist: The LVCVA got a cease-and-desist letter from the U.S. Postal Service for one of its “Crazy times call for crazy fun” TV ads depicting a Post Office out of control. The authority usually is on the other side of those letters, asking companies or organizations to cease using its “What happens here, stays here” slogan. The LVCVA has ceased and desisted.

• Illustrative quote: Although this information wasn’t exactly heard about for the first time at the conference, the devastating effects of the Great Recession on mom-and-pop casino operations could be illustrated by a quote from panelist Ryan Sheltra, who is a member of the Tourism Commission: “It’s been an absolute bloodbath up here. 2011 is going to be all about survival.”

Visitor statistics

October was a good month for Las Vegas visitation, another indication that there is slow and steady rebound from the Great Recession.

The LVCVA reported a 5.7 percent increase in visitor volume over October 2009, to 3.3 million people. The healthy October figures boosted the 10-month visitation total to 31.5 million, 2.8 percent ahead of the first 10 months of 2009.

October visitation numbers got a lift from a 19.9 percent increase in convention attendance to 419,076 despite just a 0.8 percent increase in the number of convention, meetings and shows.

October occupancy climbed 2.3 percentage points to 84.9 percent (weekend occupancy was up 1.3 points to 91.5 percent) with the biggest occupancy jump coming in the motel category, which was up 10.9 points to 59.2 percent.

For the year to date, occupancy is still off 1.3 percentage points to 81.5 percent.

It was the eighth consecutive month of percentage increases in visitor volume and average daily room rates and the largest percentage increase in occupancy rates in 2010.

Although visitors are still making their way to Las Vegas mostly by car — the average daily auto traffic at the Nevada-California border on Interstate 15 was up 8.1 percent to 37,282 vehicles — passenger counts at McCarran International Airport were up by 2 percent to 3.6 million for the month.

The visitation jump translated into a 12.5 percent increase in Clark County gaming revenue to $757.5 million, with Strip revenue up 16.1 percent to $494.8 million and downtown up 10.3 percent to $44.6 million.

Over the past 10 months, Clark County gaming revenue is up 1.7 percent over the first 10 months of 2009 to $7.46 billion.

October was the third straight month of percentage increases in monthly gaming revenue in Clark County and the first month in more than two years in which downtown Las Vegas revenue was up.

Trusted travelers

A couple of weeks ago, I railed about the Transportation Security Administration and how it could better allocate resources from intrusive scans to developing a more efficient system that would enable more air passengers to pass through a limited security line.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Travel Association made its own proposal on the national stage, calling for the TSA to develop a new “trusted traveler” program.

Under the association’s proposal, travelers who voluntarily share biometric and biographical information, pass robust background checks to confirm their “low-risk” nature and are verified by TSA at the time of travel, would be allowed to pass through an alternative security process.

Such a program, the association said, would enable the shift of security resources from a high pool of “low-risk” travelers to allow a more sustained focus on a smaller pool of travelers who are not prescreened to determine their risk level.

The organization also applauded Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin for his comments calling for increased participation in trusted traveler programs as a way to thwart terror threats. In comments to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bersin said that his agency wants to increase enrollment in trusted traveler programs to 3.5 million people in two to three years, which would allow inspectors “to spend time on those travelers about whom we do not have a level of confidence” and hasten movement through the line for other travelers.

With some people basing travel decisions on whether they have to pass through a scanner or submit to a thorough frisking, it’s in the Las Vegas tourism community’s best interests to support the trusted travelers proposal.

Airline tie-ins

Southwest Airlines and US Airways, two carriers that represent about half the flights that go in and out of McCarran, announced partnerships and promotional tie-ins last week.

Southwest, for the second straight year, is the official airline of the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

The Dallas-based carrier uses the popular festival developed by actor Robert Redford to expand its branded entertainment practice, which develops product placement in movies and TV shows. Southwest was featured in “Ocean’s Thirteen,” leading some wags to wonder why a group that had just pulled off a multimillion-dollar heist would be flying a discount airline.

Southwest is collaborating with

Gowalla.com, an online travel experience-sharing network, with a Sundance Film Festival promotion that runs through Dec. 31.

US Airways, meanwhile, has announced a partnership with GoPicnic to provide Mexican-inspired snacks on its flights.

GoPicnic has developed a line of all-natural and healthy snack foods, including Frontera salsa and Late July Organic multigrain tortilla chips.

The new snack combinations are available for $3 on most US Airways flights.