Vegas People & Jobs: What is the LVCVA?
Sunday, December 13, 2009
LVCVA's promotional activities include making photos, like this one, available to incoming meeting groups.
Photo courtesy of LVCVA.
On Tuesday, I mentioned to a friend that I had just attended the board meeting of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). “What’s that?” the local Las Vegan asked.
Wow. LVCVA is consistently in the news–in the headlines, in fact. I’ve even mentioned it in my stories. And you didn’t know?
LVCVA is an organization of some 500 employees with an annual budget of $144 million. Its mission is “to attract visitors by promoting Las Vegas as the world’s most desirable destination for leisure and business travel.”
Funding for LVCVA primarily comes primarily from a portion of the Clark County room tax. Other fees come from the conventions, tradeshows and other organizations utilizing Cashman Center and the Las Vegas Convention Center, both operated by LVCVA. In terms of promotion of the Las Vegas community as a whole, the memorable “What happens here, stays here” ads were a product of LVCVA.
No shorts and flipflops here.
Photo by Diane Taylor
LVCVA’s board of directors is chaired by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. On the board are casino executives from MGM Mirage, Harrah’s Entertainment, Station Casinos, Wynn Las Vegas and Boyd Gaming Corporation. Political entities represented on the board include the City of Las Vegas, City of Mesquite, City of Henderson, City of North Las Vegas, Boulder City and the Clark County Commission. The board also has a representative from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. Indeed, the LVCVA board is one high-powered group.
Board meetings are generally held at 9:00 a.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center on the second Tuesday of every month. Meetings are open to the public and in my view are a “can’t miss” for a news junkie. The town’s movers and shakers are there, and lots of news is generated. In casual Las Vegas, it’s also a meeting where many of the folks attending – men and women – are in formal business attire – lots of suits!
Aria's Bill McBeath addresses the LVCVA board.
Photo by Diane Taylor
What happened Tuesday? Though I personally have somewhat overdosed on all the information about CityCenter, Bill McBeath, President & COO at Aria Resort & Casino, made a presentation on the highlights of CityCenter.
Among McBeath’s comments:
“You will see no service vehicles related to CityCenter on the Strip.” He explained all vehicles servicing the buildings – deliveries, trash, linen, etc. — have subterranean entrances under the garage off Frank Sinatra Boulevard.
In addition to the $8.4 million dollars in construction costs and 10,000 people employed to build CityCenter, some 5000 different companies were part of the project.
McBeath, a third-generation Las Vegan, remembers all the doubts about previous innovative projects: the Mirage, Bellagio and Wynn. Like those projects, he feels CityCenter will be successful and “representative of the resiliency of Las Vegas”.
Jeremy Aguero is interviewed by a local TV reporter.
Photo by Diane Taylor
Another presenter at the meeting was Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst with the Las Vegas firm Applied Analysis. He presented the seventh in a series of economic impact reports. Aguero reminded the audience that even in this “difficult economic period,” in the past 12 months, 36.1 million people visited Las Vegas. Those visitors spent $25 billion and of every $10 spent, $8 was subject to some sort of taxes, making visitation the single largest generator of taxes in Nevada.
He also spoke about the impact of major special events, such as the Wrangler’s National Finals Rodeo and Aviation Nation, on the Las Vegas economy. He focused on events sponsored by LVCVA and its events-producing partner, Las Vegas Events (LVE). In 2008, the LVCVA/LVE sponsorship budget for its 36 largest events was $12.2 million. Those same events had an average attendance of 38,500 people and produced a return of $299.4 million.
Aguero noted 41% of the southern Nevada workforce, some 380,000 people, are directly or indirectly related to Southern Nevada’s tourism industry.
(8 votes, average: 4.63 out of 5)
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I check their web site regularly for conventions I might be interested in going to.
From that first picture, it looks like they’ve taken over the function of the old Las Vegas News Agency.
Hey Tom, Nice to see your post herein.
Yeah, they have taken on some of the functions of the Las Vegas News Agency — we use some of their images in the on-going Vegas Eye game here on this site. Here’s one of those images. And with your keen awareness and apppreciation of this city — perhaps you know what the name of that bridge is?
VE