Town looks to continue tourism push, need for a visitor survey called ‘imperative’

The group behind Pahrump’s tourism efforts wants to attract more money to town.

The Pahrump Tourism Advisory Committee will develop a recommendation for the Nye County Commission on a potential revenue source after the committee members floated ideas at the meeting on Thursday.

Arlette Ledbetter, tourism director for the town, said a visitor survey is “imperative.” She called it “an economic tool” because it will provide them with economic data to forecast economic development.

“I believe we need a visitor survey before we go forward. We need to find out what a visitor wants to do when they are here, what they are doing when they are here, how long they are staying, what they are spending. … That is one of the items we need to add into our budget,” Ledbetter said at the meeting.

Ledbetter also said the agency began creating third-party occupancy reporting to identify “soft periods” and then, strategize for a group business.

“Events fall under group business, corporate group business, leisure group business. There’s all kind soft group business that we need to be pursuing as we increase hotel availability because there will be soft periods that we need to fill,” Ledbetter said.

The Pahrump Tourism Advisory Committee is currently nearing the end of its five-year budget plan. The committee has yet to identify a source of revenue, as it wants to continue the momentum that’s been created in Pahrump tourism to date.

“We have completed that five-year plan in spending and now we need to take a look at it. And I think that it’s not as if we’re depending on more hotels having been built. But there certainly were projections that more hotels would have been built by now,” Ledbetter said.

Ledbetter also talked about the benefits of the relationship with BRAINtrust, a Las Vegas marketing and advertising agency that helps to promote the town through the website visitpahrump.com. She said the value of that relationship needs to be “re-emphasized.”

“We have so much power with their partnership. And not only media buying, public relations, but also in the social media arena, their ability to realize and target exactly what we need,” Ledbetter said.

Last week, the committee and Brain Trust kicked off a new campaign targeting off-roaders and ATVers on social media.

“It’s more educational and not incentivized. We are here, we are available, as well as a branding campaign, so they know where to go to ATV, where to go for their adventure tours,” Ledbetter said.

Chris Erwin, chief executive officer of the Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce said the chamber is already “maxing out” on room capacity at events that it hosts.

“Obviously, we need more hotels because we are already selling out at the events, and it’s a great thing. But at the same time, we also need a strategy on how we are going to attract visitors during those weekends that we are not selling the hotels out,” Erwin said.

The Pahrump Tourism Advisory Committee’s fiscal year 2017 approved budget is $364,575. Of that amount, $89,575 is funded by grants and $275,000 is funded by taxes.

One of the items on the non-grant marketing program is print ads in “Oh Ranger! Guide for Death Valley National Parks” that will cost $10,000.

Separate and apart from marketing grants is the welcome and exit signage at Bell Vista Avenue in Pahrump. The cost of the project is $89,575.

James Horton, member of the Pahrump Tourism Advisory Committee said the entity is projecting to spend about $460,000 between marketing costs and salaries and benefits, which would bring the shortfall to about $150,000.

Horton said the committee shouldn’t slash the promotional spending.

“Now everybody knows we exist. Perceptions are a lot more favorable than it used to be. Occupancy and the room collection, tax collection are up significantly. And to me, it no longer makes sense to just stop doing all the advertising and promotions,” Horton said.

The Pahrump Tourism Advisory Committee will vote on the recommendation to the Nye County Commission at the March 2 meeting.

The meeting will take place March 2, 8 a.m. at the Bob Ruud Community Center, 150 N. Highway 160.

Contact reporter Daria Sokolova at dsokolova@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @dariasokolova77