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March 28, 2024 3:09 pm
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N.E. Clark County Rurals Receive Tourism Grant Funds

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

The Nevada Commission on Tourism (NCOT), earlier this month, approved $760,000 in marketing grants to rural communities to market themselves as tourism destinations. The 91 different grants will support a variety of marketing projects across the state, from website improvements to attending consumer travel shows to advertising campaigns.

Four of those grants, totalling nearly $24,000 are aimed at marketing efforts for the communities of northeastern Clark County.

The Mesquite Chamber of Commerce was a recipient of a $6,000 tourism grant in this latest round of funding. This matching grant will be used to produce and publish tourist guide maps of the City of Mesquite in the upcoming year. The maps will feature information about tourist accommodations in the city as well as information about activities available for visitors to the area.

Chamber President/CEO Carol Kolson said that, despite the availability of information online, printed maps are still in high demand among visitors and tourists.

“People always think, nowadays, that no one uses maps anymore, but that is very far from the truth,” Kolson said. “The Chamber gets hundreds of requests for information about the community and one thing that they always want is a map.”

Kolson said that the Chamber received an additional $9,000 grant from NCOT earlier in the year to help in the costs of publishing the annual Destination Guide magazine for the Chamber. This annual magazine will be coming out in February.

“These two publications together are hands down the bestr advertisement that Mesquite has,” Kolson said. “They are first rate marketing products. And, even during the pandemic, we saw them fly off the shelves.”

Kolson expressed gratitude for the NCOT grants and their rural focus. “We are really dependent on those grants for these marketing tools to promote our rural areas,” she said. “And the (NCOT) staff has done a phenomenal job of focusing this funding to promote rural areas. We appreciate that.”

Two other Mesquite area grants were awarded by NCOT in this month’s round of grants.
A $4,800 grant was awarded to the City of Mesquite to help fund an advertising campaign highlighting the city as the “ultimate destination for outdoor recreation.”

The Friends of Gold Butte organization also received a $2,800 grant for advertising and materials to promote Mesquite as the gateway to the Gold Butte National Monument.

Finally, the Moapa Valley Revitalization Project (MVRP) received a $9,000 grant in this round of funding. This is for the publication of a tri-fold brochure to promote Moapa Valley as a tourist destination in the region.

MVRP member MaryKaye Washburn said that this piece would highlight the many tourist attractions in and around the community including OHV recreation opportunities, the Valley of Fire, Lost City Museum, Lake Mead and more.

Washburn said that this will be the second year for this publication which is distributed by free brochure stands in visitor centers and travel stops all up and down the Interstate 15 corridor.

Washburn also had good things to say about the ongoing partnership with the NCOT staff in funding these grants.

“We have been successful at working with them to get these grants, even though we know that funding is sparse in the state,” Washburn said. “They have made a point to reach out to our rural areas. And we have gotten a lot of mileage out of the grants we have received.”

“I think these projects, that have reached far outside of our valley, have really helped to bring people in to our community to discover what we have here,” Washburn added.

“Nevada’s rural communities manage some of our state’s most treasured natural and cultural sites,” Brenda Scolari, director of the Nevada Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, said. “We’re proud to partner with those communities to share these places with both out-of-state visitors and Nevadans.”

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