Biloxi: In Recovery Mode

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast in late August 2005, the nine casinos in Biloxi, Miss. – not including Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, which was scheduled to open the following month – took a hit.

“All of them were shut down,” said Janice Jones, manager of media relations for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Most of them were destroyed.”

But that's changed. The eight casinos' gaming business broke records in 2007, generating some $1.7 billion in revenue, about double the $845 million made in 2006, when most of the casinos reopened, Jones said. Before last year, the record had been in 2004, at $911 million.

“With the recovery, people are finding that we're back open, and they're coming,” she added. “And they're liking what they find.”

What tourists and meeting and convention attendees are finding is an area eager to increase the hotel room inventory and add more meeting space.

After Hurricane Katrina, gaming laws in Mississippi changed to allow gambling on land instead of the permanetly moored barges, Jones said. Most of the Biloxi casinos converted their meeting space to casino floors, she added.

Now, according to Jones, some of those casinos are replacing that lost meeting space and, in some cases, adding more:

• Margaritaville Casino & Resort, being developed by Harrah's Entertainment and Jimmy Buffet, will have 60,000 square feet of meeting space. It's expected to be completed by 2010.
• Bacaran Bay Casino Resort, which will break ground soon, will have 80,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.
• Island View Casino Resort has meeting space, but Jones said she didn't know how much. The Gulfside Casino Partnership bought the Grand Casino Gulfport from Harrah's after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the partnership's Copa Casino and re-opened the Harrah's property in 2006 under the new name.
• IP Casino Resort Spa, formerly the Imperial Palace Biloxi, has 18,000 sq. ft. of meeting space and is adding more, Jones said. Casino officials haven't announced yet how much additional square footage of meeting space is being added.
• MGM Mirage's Beau Rivage Resort & Casino has 50,000 sq. ft. of flexible meeting space.
• The Mississippi Coast Coliseum & Convention Center in Biloxi is expanding to include about 200,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

The casinos also account for the majority of the available hotel rooms in the area, Jones said. Before Hurricane Katrina, Biloxi had about 18,000 hotel rooms available city-wide. At the beginning of 2006, that number was down to about 5,000, but the city is inching closer to pre-Katrina days with 10,500 to 11,000 rooms available now, she added.

“We're looking forward to the opening of additional hotels that are on the horizon,” Jones said.

The casinos are a draw for some meetings and conventions, such as the Southern Gaming Summit, which is produced by the Mississippi Casino Operators Assn. and BNP Media Gaming Group. For others, like the Mississippi Assn. of Supervisors Annual Convention, it's all about the available space.

“Gaming is not the reason that we go there,” said Martele Higgins, administrative assistant and meeting planner for the Mississippi Assn. of Supervisors. “There are only two locations in Mississippi that can handle a meeting of our size.”

The show will be at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum & Convention Center June 16-19. Last year, it drew 550 professional attendees to a 112,500 net sq. ft. showfloor with 125 exhibitors.

“We were going to Biloxi before gaming and will continue to do so,” Higgins added.

However, the recovery of Biloxi did allow the Southern Gaming Summit to return in 2007 to the reopened convention center in the city where it's usually staged.

The show took place at the Tunica (Miss.) Arena & Expo Center in 2006, the first time in more than 10 years it had been anywhere other than Biloxi.

Many people at the 2007 show were interested in the area's post-Katrina recovery, said Charles Anderer, BNP Media's senior events manager for gaming. The show attracted an estimated 5,000 attendees to a roughly 35,000 net sq. ft. exhibit floor with about 140 exhibitors, he added.

“It was our biggest show ever,” Anderer said.

People wouldn't have been as interested if the area's gaming industry hadn't recovered, he added, because the show has an opening night reception at a gaming property each year, and the hotel room blocks are always at casinos.

“People in the industry want to stay at gaming facilities,” Anderer said.