The Mesquite Chamber of Commerce’s new general manager, Austin Whetzel, hosted his first chamber luncheon on Wednesday, Sept. 10, at the CasaBlanca Resort.

Whetzel was hired by the chamber’s board of directors as the general manager on Aug. 19, after the departure of former president/CEO Carol Kolson.

Whetzel gave a warm, personable greeting to attendees as they came in the door. He was introduced at the podium by board chair-elect Susan Hunter with high praise about how his background in business counseling will be a benefit to the members.

Whetzel said he was excited and happy to be a part of the chamber and the Mesquite community. He told the Progress “This has been a great experience for me. The members have been warm and welcoming to me, and I believe that my consulting background will help the members move forward in their business growth.”

Whetzel was pleased to see CasaBlanca executives in attendance as well as councilpersons Pattie Gallo and Bill Ennis and acting city manager Martine Green.

The guest speaker for the day was Amanda Belarmino, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She enlightened the audience with facts about trending tourism in Las Vegas and assured the audience that even though everyone is saying Vegas is dead because tourism is down this year, she believes that’s because of many unusual events that happened in 2024, which brought more than the usual number of visitors to the city.

She named the Super Bowl as an example during which 104,000 people came into the airport on one single day. The presidential election played a part since Las Vegas had 19 campaign events, which brought in politicians, visitors and media. The closing of old hotel casinos brought tourists with memories, who wanted to stay in them for the last time. Belarmino said, “Gaming revenue in 2025, January through July, was up .6% from 2024, and 2024 was the largest gaming year on record for Las Vegas, so we do not see a reason to be terribly concerned in the drop in visitor volume.”