With the tens of thousands of new hotel rooms expected to come online in the coming years, it could be a substantial benefit to the region's transportation programs. On the other hand, that growth is part of what the LVCVA plans to use to pay off the debt taken out to finance the convention center enhancement project. Redistributing the room taxes would "negatively impact our entire Southern Nevada economy," states a resolution approved by the LVCVA's board of directors.

The Las Vegas area hosts the vast majority of major trade shows in the US. Not including gambling losses, attendees to those events spent $8 billion in 2006, with the average attendee spending twice as much as a regular tourist, according to the LVCVA.

Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst at Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas-based research and advisory firm, presented a market impact report to the LVCVA board before its vote on the convention center project. The data suggests that the spread between the increase in trade show attendees the renovation would generate and the decrease that would occur without it totals nearly 9 million over the next 30 years, which translates into approximately $5 billion in lost revenue.

"What's not included in that figure is just as important as what's included," says Aguero, explaining that keeping trade show guests happy will be key to hotels here maintaining their plus-90% occupancies as some 47,000 new hotel rooms are added to the existing stock of 133,000 over the next four years. "What's not included is the potential threat to the brand position of Las Vegas with regard to conventions and trade shows if people start to have negative experiences. Nobody knows what that would be."