\nRichard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/p>\n
\tSitting in her modest office at The Lakes, it occurs to Mya Reyes that her career path has led her to one of the boldest tourism initiatives the city has ever seen \u2014 a massive three-day New Year\u2019s Eve celebration for gay men from 30 countries in mainstream resorts on the Strip.<\/p>\n
\tReyes\u2019 new year\u2019s event, called Evolve Vegas NYE, is 20 months in the planning and has been about all her four-person staff has worked on since the doors of the Las Vegas Gay Visitors Bureau opened in mid-2013.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI feel that everything I\u2019ve done in my life has brought me here, all the international travel I\u2019ve done and the languages I have,\u201d said Reyes, president of the bureau and founder of Evolve Vegas NYE. She is fluent in English, Spanish and French and speaks some Italian.<\/p>\n
\tReyes fully expects that the 700 Evolve packages will be sold for the inaugural event, which includes three days of shows, receptions, parties, dining experiences and shopping tours planned Dec. 30 through Jan. 1.<\/p>\n
\tIt\u2019s being hosted at the MGM Grand and the highlight of the event will be a New Year\u2019s Eve celebration at the Havana nightclub at the Tropicana.<\/p>\n
\tReyes has been a long-time advocate for gay tourism in Southern Nevada, so she didn\u2019t need a sales pitch to convince her that the gay market is a lucrative one.<\/p>\n
\tSan Francisco-based Community Market Inc. has years of research explaining why the market is so robust: For gay men and women, the average household income is $81,500, about 80 percent higher than the average American household income.<\/p>\n
\tAbout 40 percent of gay men have household incomes in excess of $100,000.<\/p>\n
\tAn estimated 83 percent of gay men and women have a passport compared with 34 percent of the adult U.S. population.<\/p>\n
\tGay men and women travel more widely than their mainstream counterparts, domestically and internationally, especially for leisure purposes.<\/p>\n
\tLas Vegas is consistently one of the top markets for gay travel, usually No. 2 behind New York City.<\/p>\n
\tReyes has always known that the gay market has been and will be good for Las Vegas, but the difference maker for Evolve is the international component.<\/p>\n
\tThe Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has made the attraction of international guests a priority. The organization that markets Las Vegas to the world and McCarran International Airport have recruited airlines to provide nonstop intercontinental flights to the city.<\/p>\n
\tReyes believes the combination is a can\u2019t-miss opportunity.<\/p>\n
\tReyes got her first taste of the international scene while studying French at UNLV. She received a degree in 1978 and got an opportunity to study abroad in a program at Paris-Sorbonne University.<\/p>\n
\tShe loved it.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhen I was about to leave, on my last day in Paris, I saw a sign recruiting for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization,\u201d she said. \u201cI had heard that foreigners could work there relatively easily and that it wasn\u2019t too hard to get a work card to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tShe ended up getting hired as a liaison between UNESCO and its member nations, and she worked directly with people from African countries.<\/p>\n
\tWhen in Europe, she met her future husband, Bill Collins, a professional basketball player that had been drafted by the Boston Celtics and who opted to pursue a professional career in Italy. She spent her early career living in France, Spain and Italy.<\/p>\n
\tShe recalled once being transported to a hospital in a boat while living in Venice when she gave birth to one of her children.<\/p>\n
\tWanting to be a stay-at-home mother, she published a parenting magazine for 12 years and eventually moved back to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\tBut one thing Reyes continued to do in her last years abroad was to keep in touch with her international contacts. It was a move that would prove invaluable to her future.<\/p>\n
\tBack in Las Vegas, MGM Resorts was completing a merger with Mirage Resorts International, and the new company announced its commitment to diversity.<\/p>\n
\tWhen then-CEO Terry Lanni announced the program, Reyes was hired as director of supplier diversity. It turned out to be a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor of MGM\u2019s award-winning diversity program and work with Lanni.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt was primarily about ethnic diversity and women and really didn\u2019t encompass anything for the LGBT market,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\tBut that came later.<\/p>\n
\tShe left MGM and went to work for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority as it began exploring the prospect of marketing directly to the gay market.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI had talked with the LVCVA about being a part of that and decided that I wanted to become better educated about the market,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\tAs a part of the agency, she became active in the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association, serving two terms on its board of directors. With members in 83 countries, Reyes was able to re-establish international contacts and make new ones.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt was a great opportunity to expose our destination to various markets all over the world,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd, as it turned out, they were all really great people, and not only were we business partners but great personal friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWhen Reyes retired from the LVCVA, she knew she wanted to continue to work in the industry, so she formed the Gay Visitors Bureau and went to work developing Evolve.<\/p>\n
\tShe hired Donovan Kaneshiro as creative strategies manager, Matt Engh as creative design manager and Fabrice Tasendo to assist with global outreach.<\/p>\n
\tThe bureau has travel agency contacts in 30 countries, including 500 American Express agencies in Mexico, and the Evolve website is available in Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Chinese as well as English.<\/p>\n
\tThe inaugural Evolve will include a reception with performers from Cirque du Soleil\u2019s \u201cZumanity\u201d as a preview to the show. Following the show will be an opening reception at the Strip\u2019s first gay nightclub, Liaison, at Bally\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\tThe second day offers an assortment of Southern Nevada day trips and shopping excursions and the final day includes a performance by Frank Marino followed by the New Year\u2019s Eve celebration at the Havana club.<\/p>\n
\tPackages also include an optional two-day trip to West Hollywood, Calif.<\/p>\n
\tReyes said the side trip is particularly important for international visitors who like to expand their itineraries when making a trip to the United States.<\/p>\n
\tMarino, whose Strip Divas are presenting their 25,000th show this year, is excited about performing for an all-gay audience.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThis will be the first time in my 30-year Las Vegas career that I will be performing for an all-gay audience,\u201d Marino said. \u201cFinally, I can do pop-culture jokes that everyone will get.\u201d<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal Sitting in her modest office at The Lakes, it occurs to Mya Reyes that her career path has led her to one of the boldest tourism initiatives the city has ever seen \u2014 a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}