Meeting News - July 7, 2008 - (Page 24)

Destination Insider: Gaming Edited by Rayna Katz rayna.katz@nielsen.com and posh dining and shopping a-plenty. Caesars Palace wraps a $1 billion expansion next year as well, led by the new 665-room Octavius Tower and a new 263,000-sf meeting and convention center. Also coming in 2009, MGM Mirage’s new City Center, 76 acres and $9.2 billion worth of urbanstyle living. High-end (as in incentive and corporate meetings) is the operative word for a quartet of the center’s hotels—the 1,543-room Vdara, 675-room Veer Towers, 400-room Mandarin Oriental and 400room Harmon Hotel, Spa & Residences. For larger meetings the main draw will be the ARIA Resort & Casino, a 61-story, 4,000-room resort with an 1,850seat theatre and 300,000 sf of meeting space. The $3.5 billion Grand Hyatt Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino, which includes 3,000 rooms and 140,000 sf of meeting space, makes its Strip debut in late 2009, while south of town, the $1 billion, 390-room M Resort is slated for a spring 2009 opening with 60,000 sf of meeting space and a 100,000-sf pool area. While Las Vegas continues its growth spurt, it’s not alone in Nevada’s additions. To the north, the Reno-Lake Tahoe area is undergoing a boom too, led by several major new and renovated resorts. Harvey’s Casino & Resort recently added a restaurant on the 19th floor that features a 180degree view of the lake’s south shore. Meanwhile, the 1,635-room Peppermill Resort Spa Casino, in the midst of a $400 million renovation and expansion, typifies Reno’s attitude towards gaming growth, adding a new ballroom, spa and quadrupling its retail space. “Our average demographic had been geared towards an older clientele and gambling, and we’re really moving to change that,” said Pat Flynn, the Peppermill’s executive director of hotel and sales. “We’re focusing more on group business and adding a lot of components that would be perceived as the ‘extra’ things to do while here in Reno.” Atlantis Casino Resort Spa is finishing a $50 million facelift that will include a new executive boardroom, 14,000-sf Grand Ballroom, health spa and, by year’s end, a skybridge that connects with the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. Phase I of a $90 million redo is wrapping up at Reno’s 1,995-room Grand Sierra Resort and Casino, adding a non-smoking wine bar, leather furniture, and flat panel TVs to the 825 guest suites. And with a nod, perhaps, to MGM Mirage’s City Center, a Lake Tahoe business consortium plans to turn the Tahoe Biltmore and former Mariner Hotel and Casino site, near Crystal Bay, into a resort community with hotels, meeting space, and a pedestrian village with shops and restaurants. Construction should begin by summer 2009. www.meetingnews.com Despite economic woes nationwide, new properties are still coming to the Strip in Vegas. Nevada continued from cover That speaks to the ongoing attraction of these areas. “It’s a combination of gaming, dining and entertainment,” said Steve Walker, director of sales for the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, which itself is expected to complete a $680 million expansion and renovation by early 2010. “Our show managers find that attendees tend to stay longer [than in other destinations] on the show floor because they know that there are shows (at 7 and 10 p.m.) and that the hotel dining rooms tend to get busy around 9 p.m.” said Walker. Recent ultraluxe properties include the Palms Place Condo Hotel and Spa (599 condo rooms; 50,000-sf spa), Trump International Hotel and Tower (1,232 suites; 24-carat gold glass exterior) and the $1.9 billion Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino (3,000 suites; 450,000 sf of retail). Encore Suites, Wynn Las Vegas’ $2.2 billion 2,000-room resort, is set to open this December. Next year, the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, a $2.9 billion, 63-story condo-hotel resort sporting roughly 3,800 rooms and is set to open in the fall. Included at the property: a 60,000-sf spa, 3,200-seat theatre, MS Gulf Coast Is Getting Back in the Game Efforts are in the works to become major convention player soon Two big openings in the coming years will have a particularly big impact on the area’s meeting business, according to Richard Forester, executive director of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau: the spring, 2010 debut of the Margaritaville Resort & Casino, a project by Harrah’s Entertainment and singer Jimmy Buffett that will boast more than 700 hotel rooms, 66,000 sf of convention space and a 100,000 sf casino; and the opening of the expanded and upgraded Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum and Convention Center. The facility will almost double in size, jumping from 180,000 sf to 350,000 sf of meeting and exhibit space when it re-opens in January, 2010. 24 MeetingNews July 7, 2008 “We are re-establishing ourselves as a convention destination,” said Forester.“But with new facilities, we expect to significantly grow group business from preKatrina days.” Meanwhile, a new, 148-room, five-suite Courtyard by Marriott opened in Biloxi in May, rising up where the Gulfport Beach Hotel—which was washed away by Hurricane Katrina—once stood. The new property, which offers 6,300 sf of meeting space, including a 4,400 sf ballroom, is part of what Forester called “a steady stream of construction that will result in a rebuilding of this destination into something even bigger than it was before Hurricane — Rowland Stiteler Katrina hit.” r http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - July 7, 2008

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