Las Vegas Sands: MICE Hold the Keys to Asia

Why teach an old dog new tricks? If he already knows a great trick, just go play it in a new yard.

That's one way to sum up the international expansion strategy of Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson. Having succeeded in Las Vegas, he's taking his show on the road; namely, to China and Singapore.

"We came to Las Vegas to build a group-based hotel and focus on filling 75 to 80 percent of the rooms midweek with either tradeshows or corporate meetings," said Eric Bello, the Sands vice president of sales who's responsible for keeping the company's several million square feet of meeting and exhibit space booked.

"When I started researching the Asian market, the tremendous potential was an exciting discovery ... I found my next frontier," Adelson said, talking about his vision in a recent statement.

Indeed, the Sands name is mushrooming around East Asia.

First, there's the Venetian Macau, the anchor of a multi-property, master-planned resort dubbed the Cotai Strip across the bay from the Chinese city-state. Slated to open this fall, the 3,000-suite Venetian Macau contains a 1.2 million sq. ft. convention center.

Bello and his team have booked tradeshows by international organizers such as Reed Exhibitions, CMP, Nielson and several of the German messe companies. Some show names U.S. readers will recognize are the Asian Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo, Global Gaming Expo Asia and ASD/AMD Trade Show. On its Web site, Hong Kong-based show manager Kenfair lists four events this year at the Venetian Macau, starting with the Home Textiles Fair 2007 Oct. 18ndash-20.

But there's more to the Sands than tradeshows. Bello said his team is also in the MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) business, with the Venetian's strongest corporate clients in automotive, information technology, pharmaceutical and financial markets. They've already booked many of Asia's largest car manufacturers, as well as Fortune 500 companies like IBM, Microsoft, Deloitte & Touche and Prudential.

"The demand for convention space is already outweighing the supply," Bello said. "We're turning some people away, and we need to outpace Hong Kong in terms of exhibit and meeting space."

With that in mind, the Sands plans another Macau resort across from the Cotai Strip on Hengquin (pronounced "Hun-chin") Island. The Zhuhai municipal government, which oversees Hengquin, gave the Sands permission to begin developing a 1,300-acre site, and the company stated that the project will be "a full-fledged convention-based and lifestyle destination resort."

Bello expects it to have "a lot of expo and meeting space." With the Hengquin property connected to the Venetian Macau by a pedestrian walkway, the Sands will be able to book overflow in the new facility.

The Sands also has a strong foothold in Southeast Asia, having won the first government concession to develop a casino resort in Singapore. There, too, the company will employ its MICE strategy, Bello said, working with the local industry to complement existing offerings at Suntec Singapore and Singapore Expo.

"We're not changing anything there," he said. "We're only building about 40,000 square meters (430,556 sq. ft.) of exhibit space, but there's over 300 meeting rooms. We wanted to add what they were missing."

The Marina Bay Sands is scheduled to open in 2009 with 2,500 hotel rooms and 1.2 million sq. ft. of convention space at a price tag of $3.6 billion. It will be within walking distance of Suntec Singapore.

Bello believes the company's heavy focus on MICE business is what allowed it to beat out Harrah's Entertainment and other bidders in Singapore.

"When Japan deregulates, expect us to be bidding for it," he said.