Travel industry officials await renewal of funding mechanism

LAS VEGAS -- Travel industry leaders aren’t hitting the panic button just yet over the Senate’s failure to reauthorize legislation that provides a funding mechanism to market the United States to the world.

The reauthorization of the Travel Promotion Act is of significant importance to Las Vegas, which is working to attract higher numbers of international visitors who stay longer and spend more than their domestic counterparts.

Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, told a Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board meeting on Tuesday he has no doubt the bill that helped establish the Brand USA marketing program will be renewed for another five years since it already has passed in the House and has broad bipartisan support in the Senate.

He just doesn’t want to see it lost in a logjam of pending legislation.

The legislation is scheduled to sunset in September.

Dow said it’s important for the reauthorization to win approval because convention and visitors bureaus nationwide are setting their budgets for next year and need to know that the program will be in place to plan their own marketing strategies.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, an ardent supporter of the Travel Promotion Act that was debated and passed by the House in 2009, approved by the Senate in 2010 and signed into law by President Obama in March of that year, hasn’t scheduled a vote, Dow said.

A Reid spokeswoman said the reauthorization vote is a top priority for the senator and he has requested to “hotline” the issue, meaning that it would be approved unanimously without debate or amendment. The “hotline” strategy was blocked by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who put a hold on the bill.

Reid will likely bring the matter to the Senate floor when lawmakers reconvene in November, the spokeswoman said.

The legislation authorizes the collection of $14 per two-year period from all international travelers arriving in the United States. Of that $14, $4 goes to the Department of Homeland Security and $10 goes to a fund to market U.S. destinations.

Representatives of the travel and tourism industry are required to match that money up to $100 million in order to use it for advertising and marketing purposes.

Brand USA was formed in 2011 to manage the nation’s marketing plan and was modeled after the efforts of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Dow, who appeared at the meeting with Rossi Ralenkotter, president and CEO of the authority; Kristen McMillan, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce; and Rosemary Vassiliadis, director of the Clark County Aviation Department, said if Brand USA continues its marketing efforts, experts expect the number of international visitors to the United States to rise from 70 million a year today to 100 million a year by 2020.

Las Vegas is capitalizing on the growth of international visitation and the Convention and Visitors Authority has a goal to expand the percentage of foreign travelers to Las Vegas from the current 20 percent to 30 percent by 2020, or from about 8 million visitors to 12 million.

Ralenkotter said it is important for the United States to market itself as a destination because there’s fierce competition for the tourism dollar. Australia, for example, spent $112 million to attract visitors. The $200 million Brand USA budget levels the playing field, Ralenkotter said.

The LVCVA was one of the first convention and visitors bureaus in the country to partner with the operators of an airport to attract more overseas flights. Clark County opened Terminal 3 for international arrivals in 2012 and has seen the number of flights and passengers grow ever since. From August 2013 to August this year, the number of passengers has grown 53 percent to 3.2 million.

Most of McCarran’s international lift — about 70 percent — comes from Mexico, Canada and the United Kingdom. Those same markets provide the most visitors to the rest of the United States.

Brand USA and Las Vegas hope to capitalize on the growing number of people from emerging markets who can afford international travel. While Brand USA is focusing on China, Colombia, India, Taiwan and Brazil, Las Vegas is looking to expand in Latin American nations, including Brazil.

Dow said his organization is working the the State Department to increase the number of so-called “visa waiver” countries that only require a passport to travel to and stay for up to 90 days in the United States. He said the number of travelers to the United States from South Korea expanded rapidly after the visa requirement was lifted in 2008.