Successful Meetings - March 2008 - (Page 12)

03.08 & ANALYSIS > Suppliers NEWS Fire Strikes Las Vegas’ Monte Carlo Hotel The resort gaming industry was on fire in the last week of January—literally. On January 25, the roofline of the 3,213-room Monte Carlo Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas caught fire; four days later, the Great Cedar Hotel, on the grounds of Foxwoods Resort Casino in CT, also had a fire. The Monte Carlo fire was probably the result of welders who were working on the roof. At least 13 people were treated for smoke inhalation, but authorities reported no major injuries. Las Vegas Fire Chief Steve Smith says that the Monte Carlo’s was an exterior fire largely confined to the rooftop and the facade of floors 27 to 32. The hotel’s facade is made of a foam material that “melted off the side of the building and started a few fires below,” Smith added. The foam is highly flammable, requiring an outer coating to prevent it from burning. But the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that firefighters were surprised at how fast the material burned. Several other hotels in Las Vegas use sheets or blocks of the dense foam to give the appearance of heavier materials like stone and brick. According to a Monte Carlo spokesperson, all individual and group-meeting reservations through February 6 were honored at one of the other nine hotels in MGM’s Las Vegas portfolio. Standards for hotel fire-safety systems were dramatically upgraded after the 1980 fire at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas that killed 87 people. Fire sprinklers on every floor are mandatory and the Monte Carlo fire did not spread to lower floors in part because of the sprinkler system. Eventually, firefighters were able to lean out windows on the 26th floor to direct hoses onto the fire above. (Ladder trucks cannot reach beyond the 10th floor.) The 300-room Great Cedar Hotel, in eastern CT, caught fire on January 29. Both the hotel and the adjacent casino were evacuated. No one was injured; the cause of the fire is believed to be a malfunction in the hotel’s electrical room, near the top of the eight-story hotel. While the Foxwoods fire was considerably smaller than the Monte Carlo and limited mostly to the exterior, the Great Cedar Hotel suffered water damage to the sixth, seventh, and eighth floors, says casino spokesman Saverio Mancini. Guests booked at the hotel at the time were moved to other hotels on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation, or to a hotel in nearby North Stonington. —Robert Carey MARCH 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS Inside > ON THE RECORD Benchmark Hospitality’s Burt Cabanas . . . . . . PAGE 14 > RESEARCH Planners respond to rising hotel prices . . . . . . . PAGE 16 > ASSOCIATIONS CIC appoints Colin Rorrie interim president . . PAGE 18 PHOTO: JERRY GALLEGOS / REUTERS / LANDOV 12 mimegasite.com http://mimegasite.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - March 2008

Successful Meetings - March 2008 Contents Editor's Note Suppliers On the Record Research Associations Planner's Spotlight Management Matters Mouth for Sale Meetings Law Pre-Event Pre-Event Tools of the Trade On Site Quick Tip Critical Conditions A Family Affair Conference Centers We Love CSM of the Year Places & Spaces Luxury Las Vegas New York CIty Houston New Orleans Quebec Bahamas Oahu & Big Island Florida Keys Gurus

Successful Meetings - March 2008

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