Top NV Marketer: Tourism, Business Need To Agree

OSKAR GARCIA

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A top Las Vegas marketer who produced the city's famed "What happens here, stays here" campaign told state and tourism industry leaders on Wednesday that casinos need to work better with other businesses to boost Nevada's economic recovery.

Billy Vassiliadis, chief executive of marketing agency R&R Partners, said Nevada seems to have developed a culture that separates the interests of casinos with those of other businesses, when really everyone should be pushing forward to raise the fortunes of everyone in the state.

Casinos and other businesses have typically been at odds with one another when it comes to taxes. Casinos have long pushed for a broader tax base that includes funds from other businesses, which resist and say they can't afford it. State lawmakers, meanwhile, have typically avoided backed pushes to raise funds in a state where many voters strongly dislike taxes.

Vassiliadis said it was "unbelievable" that it had taken until 2011 for state leaders to move toward integrating tourism with other economic development.

"Every year, between the (three) convention centers ... and the hotels north and south, we have CEOs from all over America here, right here," Vassiliadis said. "Why couldn't we put Jim Murren or Steve Wynn in a room with them and say, 'Hey, not only do we love having your business, but this is a great place to live and do work.'"

Murren, the chief executive of MGM Resorts International, and Wynn, the billionaire CEO of Wynn Resorts Ltd., are two captains of the gambling industry who headquarter their businesses in Las Vegas — though Wynn has repeatedly bashed business conditions in the U.S. since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

In Nevada, perhaps the hardest-hit state in the country because of the recession, unemployment has gone from 4.5 percent in October 2007 to 13.2 percent in October 2011, according to data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.