VEGAS INC Magazine - Latest Las Vegas business news, features and commentaries about gaming, tourism, real estate and more
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/136783
talking points Vegas shows off its attractions City's best chefs and entertainers brought together for international travel show by Richard N. Velotta A CO GU LU ES M T N s I sat in my seat at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts last week, watching an entertainment lineup that included Terry Fator, Clint Holmes and a band of Cirque du Soleil acrobats, I couldn't help wondering: How much would a show like this cost if it were presented to a regular tourist audience? The city's tourism community was out to look its best for the more than 6,000 travel buyers and exhibitors who came to town this month for IPW, the U.S. Travel Association's premiere international travel show. Show leaders say it's the biggest IPW event ever staged. It was the first of four major local events that will put Las Vegas on a world stage. The Meeting Professionals International World Education Con- 20130617_VI06_F.indd 6 "It would take someone two weeks to see the entertainment these folks are going to be seeing in 45 minutes," U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow said. So how much did it cost to bring the performers together? According to the LVCVA, nothing. All of them volunteered, meeting to rehearse at 2 a.m. before taking the stage. Sure, the performers hope the journalists come to their shows while they are in town. But more importantly, they wanted to hammer home the message that Las Vegas still is the unsurpassed leader in entertainment. rick.velotta@lasvegassun.com / 259-4061 / @VegasInc_TheRV Even if a travel journalist comes to town for a week, there are dozens of entertainment and gourmet dining options to tell the audience back home about. State's higher ed system should think like a business when it comes to intellectual property e are a knowledge-based economy, and the ultimate engine of economic growth is new technology. The key drivers of technology are our universities and the researchers they employ, and today, perhaps more than ever, the products of the mind are humankind's most valuable assets. Of course, it takes money to create new technology, and the universities depend on state and federal grants, which can be cut during tough budget times. However, there is a return on the public's investment in the form of new technology that can lead to new products and the underlying intellectual property. Because universities are not generally in the business of making goods, they are left with the IP assets, such as patents, and protecting those assets has never been more important to 6 a news release, narrative, picture or video can do to explain the Las Vegas experience. Even if a journalist comes to town for a week, there are far too many entertainment and dining options to choose from. The LVCVA's solution to that dilemma was to bring the experiences to the journalists. For three hours on a Sunday morning — no sense taking one of the evenings out of play — about 500 journalists from 60 countries scarfed down brunch prepared by chefs from 40 restaurants. Then, they settled into their seats at Las Vegas' most impressive "neutral" entertainment venue for a sampling of 10 acts from local resorts. Capitalize on our universities by T. Rao Coca W gress will bring 3,600 in mid-July and IMEX America, which focuses on Latin American tourism, will welcome 8,000 in October. But the gathering that may have the most significant impact on tourism is the 19th World Route Development Forum in early October. The forum provides one-on-one meetings for tourism leaders, airport officials and airline executives to plan routes for thousands of airplanes that will fly millions of passengers. These high-profile events also typically attract hundreds of journalists. Experts say host cities typically see a visitation bump of as much as 10 percent in the year following the event. The theory is that there's only so much the universities. In Nevada, UNLV and UNR have developed a host of technologies over the years, including those in batteries, energy efficiency, renewable power, water efficiencies and mining techniques. Assuming that these public IP assets have been properly protected, is our university system utilizing them to spur the Nevada economy? That's an important question because university research should go hand-inhand with economic development. The Nevada System of Higher Education should think like a business when it comes to the return on the investment. The return should not only be measured by the graduates it produces but also by the earnings it generates from the IP assets through leasing and selling the work its researchers do. Such earnings can be used to create new jobs, which Nevada badly needs, through commercialization of the IP assets. But it also can benefit academia by lowering the tuition costs to students, boosting faculty benefits to retain the best of the best and enhancing the academic stature. All of that is essential for a vibrant university system. According to a survey of 157 universities by the Association of University Technology Managers, universities and their inventors earned more than $1.8 billion from commercializing their academic research in fiscal year 2011. The universities used different models to harness their IP assets, and together, the surveyed universities formed 617 start-ups. The good universities are protective of the work their staff and faculty produces, as they should be, guiding inventors through the legal process to protect their work. The Nevada System of Higher Educa- tion can learn from the highly successful universities to monetize the work its researchers do. The system and its universities should consider creating a high-level office dedicated to intellectual property that would aggressively work to capitalize on the universities' work. Taking the IP and the underlying technology to market is like selling fresh fruit. IP is perishable, and new inventions and technologies have to be timely captured, protected and capitalized, lest they wither on the vine. To prevent that from happening, inventors should be given incentives to come forward with their work, and the universities should work urgently. T. Rao Coca, Ph.D., J.D. is an attorney who has spent more than 30 years working on intellectual property issues for companies including IBM and IGT. He lives in Henderson. The return should not only be measured by the graduates it produces but also by the earnings it generates through ... leasing and selling the work its researchers do. | 17 JUNE 2013 | 6/13/13 2:09:04 PM