With minimum discussion, the Pahrump Town Board members unanimously passed a request from Al Balloqui of PAVED (Pahrump Alliance for Valley Economic Development) to begin the three- to four-month process of increasing Pahrump's hotel room tax by 2 percent.

This is not a tax paid by local citizens, but by visitors staying in Pahrump's hotels. The current room tax is 9 percent with 1 percent allocated to economic development.

Town Board chairman Laurayne Murray compared the newly proposed Pahrump tax rate of 11 percent with the town of Jackpot, whose 17 percent room tax rate has not deterred the popular destination's visitors.

Town Manager Bill Kohbarger said Jackpot's occupancy rate is about 95 percent.

If the PAVED request succeeds, the funds going to benefit Pahrump would increase to a total of 3 percent of the tax revenue generated. Balloqui said the additional money would be used in part to execute an aggressive marketing campaign to attract more tourists to the area.

"It's the chicken and the egg," he said. "The more people (we attract) to the hotels, the more money we bring in for the community."

The novel aspect of Balloqui's approach is that he has obtained tacit verbal agreement from Saddle West, Best Western-Pahrump Station and the Pahrump Nugget to join in a cooperative effort with PAVED.

Although the two hotels and motel are thought of as competitors, "They are willing to come together," Balloqui said.

One stipulation the board requested before giving PAVED the okay to go ahead with the extended process of raising the room tax was written confirmation the three businesses will cooperate. Balloqui said letters would be obtained.

Currently, the hotels, motels and RV parks in Pahrump can be sold out one weekend -- say during the Fall Festival, when a premium rate is charged for rooms -- but almost empty of guests the next weekend.

Part of PAVED's objectives with the additional funds is to bring more special events to Pahrump to increase and even out the occupancy rate which would in turn increase the fees visitors consistently pay for a hotel or motel room.

There are numerous checkpoints over the next several months that will determine if the PAVED plan comes to fruition. Balliqui's written presentation included tables showing expected revenue in many different situations.