The newly formed Nevada Tourism Commission will invest $1.8 million over the next two years in marketing efforts to boost travel from nearby Phoenix as well as the more distant markets of Australia, France, Japan and South Korea.
Roughly half of that money, $870,000, will be spent on marketing efforts in Phoenix. Approximately $220,000 will be allotted to promotional efforts in the four targeted countries, with the money split evenly among the four countries. A little more than half of that money ($30,000) will go toward staffing offices in each location, with the remainder of the funds ($25,000) devoted to advertising. Another $55,000 will be set aside for sales missions to each of those countries.
The commission’s acting director, Larry Friedman, told the Interim Legislative Finance Committee, which makes monetary decisions between the biennial legislative sessions, that Las Vegas casinos may be the hook but that museums and some of the state's other attractions will also be promoted. The commission alloted $250,000 to promote rural Nevada, $122,000 to promote museums and $7,500 to promote the state's historical Highway 50, the so-called "Loneliest Road in America," that stretches the width of the state past numerous ghost towns and frontier cemeteries.