las vegas brings forward advertising campaign

LAS VEGAS’ UK winter trade advertising campaign has been brought forward to try to drum up bookings in the wake of the US terrorist attacks.

A window display campaign for agents scheduled for the turn of the year was instead launched last month after requests from the trade, and since November 1 the UK office has been running co-operative advertising with tour operators.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority UK representative Stella Clery-Ackland said the adverts carry the “It’s time for you” theme, but also feature the operators’ own message.

“We have dropped the Las Vegas image adverts and are focusing on getting people travelling again,” said Clery-Ackland.

Las Vegas usually attracts 350,000-400,000 UK visitors a year.

She added: “Campaign funds were in place and we are not planning to increase them until we can take stock of the situation in the new year.

“What is for sure is that we will be reactive to the current situation and we will not do nothing.”

The LVCVA UK office is also planning a major training programme for tour operators’ reservation staff.

“It is more difficult to get agents together, but if they want to organise themselves into groups we will happily train them” said Clery-Ackland.

She added that Las Vegas is showing signs of recovery since the attacks. The mood is not sombre, and people are out on the Strip enjoying themselves. It has been very busy over recent weekends.

“We believe that Las Vegas will be the first place in the US to recover from this and the figures indicate this is starting to happen,” she said.

Hotel and motel occupancy in September was down just over 14% to 73%, but weekend occupancy is now around 82%.