Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

DAILY MEMO: TOURISM:

With new leaders, a revival of maglev high-speed rail?

Issues await positions of Sandoval, Heck

Enlargeable graphics: Maglev and DesertXpress

Launch slideshow »

We may soon learn how our newly elected officials in Carson City and Washington will side on issues that involve the big pillar of our economy, tourism.

For instance, how will Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval come down on the duel between competing high-speed train proposals to join Las Vegas with Southern California?

Maybe this tips his hand: He wants to retain Susan Martinovich as the head of the Nevada Transportation Department, where she has been working with the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission, which supports a magnetic-levitation transportation system. Outgoing Gov. Jim Gibbons supported maglev, too. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also did at one time, but now he supports the more conventional DesertXpress high-speed train between here and Victorville.

While the maglev project languishes because the Federal Railroad Administration won’t answer the state’s or the American Magline Group’s calls, the federal agency was quick to find $1 million to begin environmental studies for the critical link between Victorville and Palmdale, Calif., that DesertXpress needs to complete the Las Vegas-L.A. route.

In Washington, we know that our newly elected Republican congressman, Joe Heck, has expressed disdain for the Travel Promotion Act signed into law this year by President Barack Obama. The legislation was supported by every major tourism organization in the state and the rest of the delegation and enables the United States to collect $14 from travelers entering the country.

The resulting fund, matched by private enterprise, will be used to promote the United States abroad and explain our country’s security and entry procedures.

Heck said charging travelers the extra fee when entering the country would spur other countries to do the same thing, making travel abroad more expensive for Americans.

It isn’t likely Heck would lead an effort to repeal the Travel Promotion Act, but the tourism industry will be watching him.

Meanwhile, several groups have a bone to pick with Reid and Republican Sen. John Ensign for supporting the notion of taxing Internet travel companies that sell hotel rooms.

(Disclosure: a sister company of the Sun, VEGAS.com, sells hotel rooms online.)

Counties and municipalities nationwide have complained about not getting all the tax revenue they’re due from third-party intermediary companies such as Orbitz, Expedia, hotels.com and VEGAS.com.

A very simplified explanation of the issue is that third-party companies contract with hotels and get an inventory of rooms at a discounted wholesale rate. When customers book through that company, they pay a rate above that wholesale price and pay taxes and fees on that amount. But when they square up with the hotel, the company pays taxes based on the lower wholesale rate.

State and local governments have filed suits against the operators to recover those taxes and have had mixed success. Some jurisdictions have redefined their tax ordinances to force the third parties to pay taxes based on the rates they sell to customers.

Clark County and the Nevada Commission on Tourism back the third-party booking companies, which resorts view as partners in the process.

•••

October traffic at McCarran International Airport was up 2 percent over a year ago to 3.6 million passengers.

But over 10 months, traffic is off from last year by 1.9 percent to 33.5 million passengers — not bad, considering McCarran has 4.5 percent fewer flights now than it had a year ago.

Only one of the 14 domestic air carriers that serve McCarran — US Airways — had fewer passengers in October than in the same month a year ago.

Delta Air Lines, the No. 2 carrier at McCarran, had 9.3 percent more passengers for the month, thanks in part to adding flights here.

Market leader Southwest was up 5.8 percent over a year ago; American was up 5.3 percent, and United was up 4.2 percent.

•••

Delta, the No. 2 operator at McCarran, is expanding service to Europe and Asia, which will result in one- or two-stop service between Las Vegas and several markets next spring and summer.

The most significant expansion is in Asia, where Delta has applied to begin new routes to Beijing and Guangzhou and additional service to Shanghai and Manila, Philippines, via its Tokyo hub.

In Europe, Delta is expanding service to London’s Heathrow International Airport, Amsterdam and Paris. The company also is adding service between New York and Reykjavík, Iceland.

The bulk of the new service is through Delta hub airports.

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