A Pittsburgh slots parlor will pump millions into the local economy, experts said Wednesday, but the area's tourist industry hopes those dollars don't come just from local residents. "We have to have the operators of the slots parlor help drive the marketing campaign further away from Pittsburgh" to attract people living more than 500 miles from the city, said Robert Imperata, executive director of VisitPittsburgh. If the casino attracts only a local audience, it would be like "taking dollars from one pocket to another," said Chaz Letzkus, sales manager for the Holiday Inn, Green Tree, said yesterday after experts discussed the impact of a casino on the local tourism, in an event at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. A slots casino and related development could attract 2.5 million visitors to the city annually, said Abe Naperstek, development director for Forest City Enterprises of Cleveland, which is proposing a Harrah's Station Square Casino. A casino might generate $150 million worth of new business annually for area restaurants, taverns, nightclubs, hotels and transportation providers, said Robert Oltmanns, a spokesman for PITG Gaming LLC., which wants to build the Majestic Star casino on the North Shore. A Pittsburgh casino will attract a "drive-in market" --- people living within 90 minutes of the city --- rather than a fly-in market like Las Vegas, Oltmanns said. What VisitPittsburgh -- formerly the convention and visitors bureau -- wants to attract are visitors traveling longer distances because they are more likely to stay in a local hotel for one or two nights and take in other tourist sites, Imperata said. "It's all about beds and heads," Imperata said. The tourist count in Pittsburgh could increase by 26 percent as a result of the casino, Oltmanns estimated. A casino operator has to court the motorcoach business, which would bring people from outside Western Pennsylvania, Letzkus said. Otherwise, a casino would take revenue from those who would spend their leisure dollars elsewhere, he said. If the state wants to provide the most economic impact for Downtown, "the only place to build this is in the Lower Hill District," which is the site proposed by the Isle of Capri, said Mark DeIntinis, the Pittsburgh City Center Marriott's director of sales and marketing. The Marriott is across from Mellon Arena, which would be razed for a casino-arena complex. Casino customers would shop in the stores and park in Downtown, which would benefit the Golden Triangle, DeIntinis said. While hotels tied to casinos offer preferred customers rooms at discount prices, DeIntinis said that practice is not as prevalent in slots-only casinos like one planned for Pittsburgh. The casinos will offer meeting space and that "will definitely have an impact on how we do business," said John McGonahy, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Meeting Professionals International, which sponsored the discussion.

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