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Las Vegas Roundup17 December 2001LAS VEGAS, Nevada –- With roughly 121,000 Australian visitors in 2000, Las Vegas was fourth on the list of favorite U.S. stops for Aussies behind Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, said Jo-Anna Palmer, account manager for Gate 7 travel agency in Sydney. They had been making huge travel gains here, increasing their numbers by 50 percent from the previous year. But that was before Sept. 11. Australia lost 90 citizens in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and shortly afterward saw the failure of Ansett, one of its major airlines. Speaking at the 18th annual Governor's Conference on Travel & Tourism this past week at the Rio, Palmer said tour bookings from Australia dropped 85 percent after Sept. 11 while independent passenger bookings fell 40 percent. ***** TRIVIA TIME: When was the Sands hotel-casino imploded to make way for The Venetian? ***** WHAT LOBBYISTS?: The National Collegiate Athletic Association's drive to ban legal betting on college sports depends heavily on the NCAA's Washington, D.C., lobbying efforts. The NCAA recently hired two people to take the place of a pair of staffers who resigned earlier this year, with one departing because of a strategic battle within the organization. Although they will lobby members of Congress, an NCAA spokeswoman says they are not lobbyists. "We've replaced our government relations staff in D.C.," NCAA spokeswoman Jane Jankowski lectured. "They are not lobbyists. They work on federal issues important to the NCAA." ***** TOUGH TIMES: The main ballroom at last week's Governor's Conference on Travel & Tourism was silent for a moment as American Gaming Association President Frank Fahrenkopf described how the Sept. 11 terror attacks affected him personally. The former Republican Party chairman noted that one of his law school classmates, U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olsen, was married to political commentator Barbara Olsen, a passenger on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. As he spoke about Ted Olsen, Fahrenkopf teared up. He walked a few feet from the podium and took several seconds to regain his composure before resuming his speech. ***** TRIVIA ANSWER: The Sands, which opened Dec. 15, 1952, was demolished in November1996 to make way for the $1.5 billion Venetian. ***** QUOTABLE: "We view each other as competitors, as the other team. Our voice is louder and more effective when we speak as an industry." - Harrah's Entertainment Chairman Phil Satre, who last week called on Nevada's major casino operators to cooperate on critical issues facing the state. |