Behind Las Vegas’ $2M ‘spearfishing’ effort to lure CEOs

In order to attract businesses to relocate to Southern Nevada, economic development agencies need to start going “spearfishing,” a economic development leader told lawmakers.

The days of companies choosing Southern Nevada to relocate all by themselves are ending and if the area wants to continue diversifying its economy there needs to be a more proactive approach to get businesses to come to Las Vegas, Tina Quigley, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, said.

“It is time for us to become very strategic and targeted and going spearfishing for the companies and the industries that we want to help develop our community,” Quigley told lawmakers at a February meeting of the Nevada Legislature’s Joint Interim Standing Committee on Revenue.

The LVGEA is a regional development authority tasked with growing and improving Southern Nevada’s economy and is now going to target recruitment efforts to companies in advanced manufacturing, technology companies that operate in finance, health and sports as well as creative industries like film production, Quigley said.

Last month the LVGEA did its first spearfishing experiment by spending $2 million to create the LOCATE Las Vegas initiative, which used the spectacle of Super Bowl week to show CEOs and leaders of 16 businesses considering relocation the positive aspects of Southern Nevada.

The initiative covered tickets to the big game but also had the CEOs take a helicopter tour and visit key facilities in the region such as the Smith Center for Performing Arts, UNLV’s Black Fire Innovation building and the Kirk Kerkorian Medical School and the headquarters of the Las Vegas Aces, Quigley said.

The budget for the LOCATE initiative was $2 million, with $1 million coming from local governments, $440,000 from Clark County, $290,000 from the city of Las Vegas, $150,000 from North Las Vegas and $120,000 from Henderson.

Quigley said the LOCATE initiative was a success and she expects that six to nine companies involved in the initiative could relocate operations to the state in the next year. The identity of the 16 businesses haven’t been shared since it could disrupt the operations for those businesses if their names got out, a LVGEA spokesperson said.

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development also thought the LOCATE initiative was a success, said Tom Burns, executive director of this state agency. He also agreed that Nevada needs to be more proactive in attracting companies.

“The days of just saying that ‘We have low taxes and you should come here,’ that doesn’t work because there are other states that have very low tax bases that are very aggressive in this space, specifically Tennessee, Florida and Texas,” Burns said in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “They throw a lot of money at moving companies to their states and right or wrong, we don’t do that.”

The LVGEA said it’s interested in hosting more initiatives like LOCATE to get the attention of companies. Burns is also in favor of the LVGEA hosting more of these recruitment initiatives.

“We have to take advantage of our unfair advantages,” Burns said. “All those world class events that we’re going to be hosting, we need to take advantage of the fact that those are here and use that mechanism to show off our state.”

Going spearfishing for relocating businesses doesn’t just mean schmoozing CEOs when world events are taking place in Las Vegas, it also includes sending representatives to industry conferences around the country and traveling to businesses in different parts of the country to sell Southern Nevada, Quigley said. Some of the industry events on the LVGEA’s list are the BIO International Convention in San Diego and the Battery Show North America in Detroit, according to a slideshow Quigley showed lawmakers.

Burns said that GOED is also trying to be more proactive in recruitment and take similar steps as the LVGEA.

“We need to be out there and be aggressive too, because if we’re sitting on the sidelines, the game’s going to pass us by,” Burns said.

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.