Room on the Strip

LAS VEGAS—Smack dab in the middle of the Strip is a desolate expanse of near-empty land, pockmarked by the shell of a parking garage and the beginning of what was planned to be a multibillion-dollar megaresort.

That’s where Boyd Gaming’s Echelon was supposed to be erected before the company announced in a second-quarter earnings call last year that the project was being put on hold indefinitely because of negative market conditions.

Farther north on the Strip is the Fountainbleau Las Vegas, which, except for the fact that currently it’s just a facade, looks like it could be open and ready for business any day now. It, too, was clobbered by the downturn in the economy and now awaits the additional financing needed to finish construction.

And, yet another project that was put on ice, the Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino, farther south on the Strip next to MGM Mirage’s massive CityCenter project, appears to be near completion, though it’s also had a tough road to hoe. Its debut also has been delayed, possibly until late next year.

These are the casualties of the past year’s challenging economy. Still, there are plenty of other properties that have opened recently, or are about to open, that not only have escaped the crisis, but now are booking business – or at least trying to.

One of the biggest projects set to launch is the $8.5 billion CityCenter that will open four of its six properties in December.

According to David Gonzales, MGM Mirage’s public relations manager, Vdara Hotel & Spa, with 1,404 suites and a 4,000 square foot ballroom and three breakout rooms, will open Dec. 1; Crystals Retail & Entertainment shopping complex will open Dec. 3; and the Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas, with 392 rooms and a 7,000-plus sq. ft. ballroom, and the largest of the properties, Aria Resort & Casino, with 4,004 rooms and 300,000 sq. ft. of convention and meeting space, will open Dec. 16.

“We’ve had great feedback,” said Tara Russell, vice president of sales and marketing for Vdara. “(Room) bookings are phenomenal for December and January.”

Meetings bookings also are coming along, she added, with Intl. CES scheduling some if its off-site events at the property in January.

Vdara teams with Aria on its meetings business, Russell said, since the latter has a lot more meeting space to offer.

Stephanie Windham, Aria’s director of sales, said, though the economy put a damper on bookings early on, in the past month, they’ve begun to pick up.

“It’s been very good,” she added. “We started selling two and a half years ago.”

Aria has 38 meeting rooms and four large ballrooms, ranging in size from 20,000 to 51,561 sq. ft. Even so, Windham said she’s not really going after tradeshows, but instead is pursuing the corporate and incentive markets.

“What groups are loving is, if they book 1,500 rooms, they get all the meeting space,” she added. “In an ideal world, we would like 500- to 1,500-sized groups.” Other properties on the Strip that opened during the past year, such as Steve Wynn’s Encore, adjacent to Wynn Las Vegas, Harrah Entertainment’s conference facility at Caesars Palace and the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas’ new tower and meeting facilities, all have had to contend with economic woes, while trying to lure new business.

Encore opened Dec. 28 and, according to Steve Blanner, executive director of convention sales and services, “We’re very, very excited. We’re doing really well.”

The property has 2,034 rooms and 60,000 sq. ft. of meeting space, and, though Blanner said Encore still is working to ramp up its meetings business, October has been the best month it’s had so far, with 120 groups booked at Encore and Wynn.

“Eighty-five percent of our business is corporate,” he added, “but we’re trying to get away from that. We’re targeting associations more now.”

It’s the corporate market that made this year, in particular, a difficult one to manage, according to Danielle Babilino, senior vice president of hotel sales at the Encore and Wynn.

After President Obama made his remarks earlier in the year discouraging corporations from booking meetings in Las Vegas, Babilino said the two properties lost 39,000 room nights.

Since then, she added, it’s been a challenge. “Every quarter, we’re like, 'What’s next? What is someone going to throw at us?’” Babilino said.

Even though it’s been difficult, she added, there’s been an uptick in advance bookings for next year, and bookings beyond that look brighter.

“2011 is even better, but we think the real recovery will be in 2012,” Babilino said. “It’s highly competitive. We would be kidding ourselves if we thought next year was going to be great.”

Another person looking at stark reality is Michael Massari, vice president of meeting sales and operations for Las Vegas Meetings By Harrah’s Entertainment, who said meetings bookings right now were “disastrous” at the company’s seven properties.

Future bookings were somewhat better, he added, tracking 80 percent of what he called “normal” before the economic downturn hit.

Still, “it doesn’t appear 2010 will be any better than 2009,” Massari said. “We lagged going in by a year, and we’ll lag going out by a year.”

In the meantime, Caesars Palace opened additional meeting space, with two ballrooms and seven meeting rooms added in July that need to be sold.

J.J. Wills, the national sales manager for Caesars Palace who is heading up the effort, said response to the new space has been “tremendous.”

She added, “It’s put us in a whole other realm.”

The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas, located just off the Strip, also recently upgraded its meeting space offerings, giving meeting planners the opportunity to have a total sensory meeting package option, according to Tom Clearwater, vice president of sales for the property.

In April, the Paradise Tower opened, adding 490 rooms to the existing 640, along with 60,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

“We’ve had an amazing response,” Clearwater said. Most of the new space is located in The Joint, a music venue that typically houses concerts, but also has the ability to be converted into a general session or awards space, he added.

In addition, meeting planners are able to choose one of three sensory experiences for their events – energy, relaxed or focused – that each has different aromas, music and lighting.

So far, Clearwater said, the struggling economy has not had an impact on Hard Rock’s business.

“We kind of fall into a different niche,” he added. “We’re not a five-star hotel, so people aren’t avoiding us, but we’re still upscale. October and November have been the two biggest group months of the year. November is unbelievable.”