LVCVA leader receives raise, $190K bonus

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President and CEO Steve Hill will get a 4 percent, or $19,300, annual pay raise to $495,000 a year and a 40 percent, or $190,280, bonus for guiding the city’s destination marketing organization through what is widely believed to be the city’s most successful year.

Hill, who has led the LVCVA since 2018, was credited with overseeing the city’s inaugural hosting of the Super Bowl in February and the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix in November.

With serving as the top officer of the LVCVA, he chairs the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, which guided construction of the $2 billion Allegiant Stadium and is working with Major League Baseball to relocate the Oakland A’s to a stadium that would be built on the former Tropicana resort site on the Strip.

Hill is compensated at around the midrange of the nation’s top destination marketing organization leaders despite having the additional responsibility of overseeing management of the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is undergoing a $600 million renovation.

Representatives of the LVCVA board of directors, who voted unanimously to give Hill the raise and bonus, said they expect to review compensation policies next year to bump Hill higher among peer executives.

Over the past fiscal year, Hill emphasized driving additional tourist demand, worked to fill and sell the city’s meeting and convention space, developed new sports and special events, renovated the convention center and improved access throughout the community by maintaining the Las Vegas Monorail and developing the Boring Co.’s Vegas Loop underground transit system.

In the last calendar year, visitation was up 5 percent to 40.8 million, the overall visitor spend was up 15 percent to $51.5 billion and individual visitor spending was up 9 percent to $1,261, according to LVCVA statistics.

Many of Hill’s goals for next year are to exceed the growth that has occurred already.

Compensation committee chairman Brian Gullbrants, a Wynn Resorts executive, praised Hill for the work he’d done.

“Steve, your leadership is truly impressive,” Gullbrants said. “There’s a huge force of people here. But what you’ve been able to do, leading from the front in this organization, is truly remarkable. When you think about growth and development of our destination, we couldn’t have asked for any more, couldn’t have dreamed up what you guys delivered. It was really impressive. And the one word that we talked about in our compensation committee was, you’ve restored pride in our destination.”

But not everybody was forthcoming with praise.

Community activist Ed Euling, a frequent critic of the LVCVA, said in public comment at the end of the meeting that board members were “doing a horrible job” based on single-digit percentage increases in visitor volume.

“What a bunch of lies,” he said. “What a pathetic event is happening here. Yes, the corporations are doing great. Wall Street is doing great. The people on this board are doing great. And there are lots of increases for the executives of this organization. What about the community? It’s not doing great.”

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.