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Jun. 14, 2008
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LV NUDGING VISITORS AWAY

Tourism officials hope to use Strip as launching point for national parks

By BENJAMIN SPILLMAN
REVIEW-JOURNAL

National Park Service Ranger Jenny Hamilton gives a cave tour of the Lehman Caves at Great Basin National Park near Baker in October 2006.
Photo by John Locher.



William Wilcox hikes near Wheeler Peak in Great Basin in October 2006, the park's 20th anniversary.
Photo by John Locher.

Western tourism boosters are doing something once unheard of in Las Vegas -- encouraging visitors to leave the Strip's posh gambling resorts and spend time in the great outdoors.

Their goal is to boost lagging visitation to national parks and other isolated adventure outposts by marketing to the tens of millions of people, particularly foreigners, who visit major destinations in Las Vegas; Anaheim, Calif.; and San Francisco.


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    • Specifically, they want visitors to go beyond lush resorts and obvious tourist sightseeing venues such as Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon to spend time -- and money -- at lesser-known spots in Nevada, California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington.

    If they're successful it will mean private businesses and public parks in oft-forgotten towns such as Ely and Tropic, Utah, will share in revenue once confined to big casinos and theme parks.

    "We've been working for years to break into the minds of the Las Vegas people," said Chris Crystal, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Commission on Tourism. "In the old days, there was this feeling we want to rake everybody into the casino and keep them there."

    The trend was evident recently in Las Vegas when thousands of foreign journalists, tour operators and destination businesses gathered for International Powwow, a travel industry convention.

    In addition to a massive presence on behalf of the Las Vegas gambling industry, the Nevada tourism boosters trucked foreign travel writers to Death Valley and Great Basin national parks, along with other rural stops.

    And shortly after the travel convention concluded, officials from the National Park Service and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority met at Lake Mead National Recreation Area to talk about how more-sophisticated marketing and customer service practices could increase the number of fee-paying visitors at national parks.

    Cathy Tull, the authority's vice president of strategic planning, urged National Park Service workers to remember that parks, like resorts, golf courses and casinos, are entertainment venues that need to compete for visitors' time and money.

    The park service should use market and brand research to make a connection with potential customers and make parks more than just green spots on a map, she said.

    "Whether you love it or hate it, 'what happens here, stays here,' is one of the most successful destination slogans in the history of destinations," Tull said. "(It) elicits an emotional response."

    Now would be a good time for the parks to tap into customers' emotions, and their wallets. Park visitation peaked nationally in 1999 with 287 million visits and has been in decline since.

    In 2006, the Pacific West Region, which includes Great Basin, Death Valley and Joshua Tree, had the steepest visitation decline among all regions, recording 1.3 million fewer visitors than in 2005.

    Dean Reeder, national tourism director for the National Park Service, said the future of parks depends largely on the ability of park workers to attract new business. Reeder says customers not only provide entrance fees that support the parks, they provide a constituency that pressures Congress to remember the park service at budget time.

    "If parks aren't relevant, the public isn't going to support parks," Reeder said.

    To that end, Reeder, executive director of the Utah Travel Council when the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City, is leading a push to get the federal government to fund a tourism office at a cost of about $800,000 annually.

    There's also a lot at stake in small communities that depend on parks to attract tourists to keep rural economies afloat.

    "We are not on a road that you drive to," said Denys Koyle, owner of the Border Inn near Baker, Nev., outside Great Basin.

    The inn depends on traffic from Highway 50, a route so defined by desolation it is nicknamed the "Loneliest Road in America."

    Koyle praised the Nevada Commission on Tourism for promoting rural tourism, but said there is very little promotion for Great Basin's off-season activities like cross country skiing and snowshoeing.

    "There is no concerted effort to increase that kind of traffic, but there should be," she said.

    The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority also recognizes the potential for increased park visitation to help the major resorts it represents.

    During Powwow, Rossi Ralenkotter, the authority's president and CEO, told a group of foreign journalists of an effort to use the proximity of Las Vegas to 13 Western parks as a lure to make Las Vegas a hub for foreign visitors seeking an outdoor American experience.

    Ralenkotter said visitors who add parks to their itineraries are likely to stay longer and spend more money in Las Vegas, even if they duck out of town for awhile.

    Crystal agreed.

    "The casinos know that in the end, you are going to come back to your hotel at the end of the night," she said. "Almost everybody plugs a few bucks into a slot machine. It all adds up."

    Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.

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    Genius wrote on June 14, 2008 10:10 PM: "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
    "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
    "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
    "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."


    Sheriff wrote on June 14, 2008 09:34 PM: Former Sheriff, Jim Gibbon's bestest buddy, Bill young. Sheriff.


    The (former) Sherrif Bill Young Metro Culture wrote on June 14, 2008 09:31 PM: SHERRY BELOW IS EXACTLY, EXACTLY, EXACTLY CORRECT:

    "Our police force is run like an army of occupation in this town. I dont feel like the cops service me, the citizen. I think they see me, the citizen as a threat and suspicious. They drive their cars erratically, make little contact with citizens, and are arrogant."

    Yep: It's the Bill Young Metro culture.


    resident wrote on June 14, 2008 04:52 PM: I find it funny that whats his @uck who runs Stations pulls in 125 mil last year and no ones outraged. I don't give a @hit how people may say that casinos are par excel lance for keeping nevada alive. Truth is, gambling is getting more and more spread around the country and NV has made no plans to get people here with 6-10$ gas not far off the horizon. And keep laughing, I'm the same guy who said 4$ gallon gas and a housing implosion 2 years ago when people were pooh pooh. The gambling industry needs to loosen way up or no ones gonna be coming here.


    Kelly wrote on June 14, 2008 02:20 PM: Keep the tourists where they belong: drunk, stupid and half naked spending all their cash at the club du'jour on the Strip. Our beautiful natural resources are our best kept secret. Let's keep it that way.


    andy wrote on June 14, 2008 02:19 PM: There are already too many tourists at Red Rock, and we certainly don't need more of them going to Mt. Charleston. I liked it better when they thought Vegas was a wasteland and didn't leave the Strip.

    All this talk of less people coming to Vegas is BS. I was on the Strip a couple weeks ago and it was the most packed I've ever seen it on a non-holiday. I'm a 30 year old native btw.


    Mark$ wrote on June 14, 2008 01:56 PM: The new Vegas image is getting out to the nation: Ridiculously-overpriced hotel rooms & fancy schmancy expensive restaurants, nightclubs geared towards sharpies who can fork over a thousand bucks to big mean ugly doormen just to get in to hear piercing loud disco music and see some drunken 2nd tier celebrity. And, for those of us who love Nature and enjoy Nevada's beautiful wild desert & mountains without needing an ad campaign, please, the last thing we want is tourists coming who do nothing but take a quick digital photo and throw their garbage.


    Jake Valentine wrote on June 14, 2008 12:09 PM: How did this the police get twisted into comments about this article? When people are so biased they can't see how extreme their mindset has become we are in trouble.

    Unfortunately I think we will look back at the past 15 years or so as the height of tourism in Vegas. The number people I know who who haven't been here and still would like to visit someday is greatly reduced compared to just 5 years ago. The same can be said for people who have been here and would consider visiting again. I talk to a lot of people with the "been there, done that" attitude when it comes to our valley. That doesn't imply this will be a ghost town anytime soon, but Vegas has really lost its appeal to a lot of people. Advertising our natural wonders could help a bit, but there is a lot of competition for that market in other areas of the country (or other areas of the world for that matter). Perhaps the return of affordability (cheap food and room rates)could reverse this course. The most common complaints I hear is that Vegas is just too expensive and everybody has their hand out for a tip in this town.


    Sherry wrote on June 14, 2008 11:53 AM: I agree with LB. Our police force is run like an army of occupation in this town.
    I dont feel like the cops servce me, the citizen. I think they see me, the citizen as a threat and suspicious.
    They drive their cars erratically, make little contact with citizens, and are arrogant.


    LB wrote on June 14, 2008 11:05 AM: LV NUDGING VISITORS AWAY! Thats an under statement. Thanks to the out of control cop and corrupt judges, visitors are being warned to stay away from the entire state. The new slogan is enter at you own risk as Vegas has become an abusive place to visit or live.

    No one wants to be in a "Police State".
    No one in their right mind can approve a Henderson cops execution of a mother in front of her children. No one can approve the massive amounts of citizens in Nevada prison's for unjust reasons.

    Nevada, Las Vegas & Henderson is a Terrorist run community. Run by terrorist hiding behind the badge and judged by a bunck of corrupt people so bent out on destroying the American family any way they can, just to make a buck.
    Nevada isn't about gambling or fun, its about an broken out of control legal system designing bad laws and overzellous cops to enforce them.

    Ask yourself, why no one is being allowed to feed the poor or visit the parks or having curfues, cops on every corner waiting to pounce.
    Is no wonder there is so much stress in the valley. It really is a bad place to raise a family as long as the cops are allowed to kill without remorse or allowed to run amuck with out control.

    LV NUDGING VISITORS AWAY, heck they are practically drawing your blood for DNA testing before you get off the plane.
    Oh, let not forget the new Airport X-Ray that will allow the guards to see your genitals and nipples.

    The terrorist hiding behind the badge have truely won and they havn't even fired a shot, unless you count those murdered by the cops over the past 6 years that we can count.

    You decide.


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