Nevada tourism campaign trying to entice urban residents to rural areas by suggesting they not go

Nevada tourism officials are getting creative to try to lure urban dwellers to visit rural attractions, Richard Velotta reports for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Only 6 percent of Nevada's urban residents visit rural sites, compared to 25 to 50 percent in most other states, said state tourism-commission Director Claudia Vecchio. (Review-Journal photo: Lake Mead)

The Discover Your Nevada program, which "has no advertising budget and most of the publicity is developed by the office's in-house public relations department," was created four years ago "to publicize rural destinations and events to urban audiences," Velotta writes. One new campaign idea is to attempt to use reverse psychology to get urban residents interested in visiting rural areas. "The marketing committee of the Nevada Commission on Tourism on Thursday said they could deliver a list of 15 reasons not to go to Lake Mead or Lake Tahoe, a strategy that could draw considerable attention but ultimately result in a higher level of interest." Commissioner Don Newman told Velotta, "It's a little dangerous at first glance."

The program in the past "has incorporated online destination-popularity votes, geocache and scavenger hunts and road trips taken by Gov. Brian Sandoval and former Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki," Velotta writes. Hutchison, who chairs the tourism commission, told Velotta, "I think there are a lot of people in Nevada who don't even know about these places." (Read more)