Destination Jackpot
(source: Incentive July 3, 2006)
Destination Jackpot
Gaming locations are taking off as the once taboo pastime becomes an increasingly popular form of entertainment.
By Donna M. Airoldi
JULY 03, 2006 – — Planning an incentive program in a gaming destination can be a sure bet for some groups, especially as the rage for poker and other gaming experiences continues to grow. And it doesn’t hurt that the products on offer in Las Vegas and other destinations—fantasy hotel suites, luxury shops, celebrity-chef restaurants, nightclubs and entertainment extravaganzas—keep raising the bar in terms of comfort, cachet and bragging rights. Here’s a look at what’s new in destinations around the globe.
NEVADA
Las Vegas
Far and away, the mother of all gaming destinations is Las Vegas.
“When gaming started across the country on [Native American] reservations and riverboats, there was talk of the death of Las Vegas,” says Tim McKenna, senior manager of procurement for Carlson Marketing in Minneapolis. “Instead, they served as a training ground for people to get comfortable with gambling before heading to the mecca, Las Vegas. Now, attendees are putting pressure on corporations that maybe avoided it in the past because they want to go to Vegas.”
Everywhere else pales by comparison, agrees Sandi Porter, director of industry relations for the U.S. and Canadian markets for Maritz Travel, based in St. Louis. “Programs are well attended, and you don’t get the attrition you have in other destinations. It’s our number-one destination in terms of both number of programs and number of attendees that go there. That says something in and of itself because we plan in excess of two thousand programs annually.”
Since our most recent development roundup in February, George Clooney has pulled his multibillion development, Las Ramblas, off the table, and the Hard Rock Hotel postponed its planned $1 billion expansion just prior to being purchased by the Morgans Hotel Group. But plenty of other projects are reaching fruition and moving ahead as scheduled.
In May, The Signature at MGM Grand opened the first of what will be three towers of 576 luxury suites each, with Towers 2 and 3 to follow in 2007. All are non-gaming and nonsmoking. Suites feature marble and granite bathrooms with dual-sink vanities, Jacuzzi whirlpool tubs and June Jacobs spa products; high-speed and wireless Internet connections; and Sub-Zero, Miele and Bosch appliances in the kitchen. All three towers will also include a business center, while Towers 2 and 3 will contain executive boardrooms and meeting space for small groups.
The next non-gaming property to hit Vegas is The Platinum Hotel and Spa, a 255-suite condominium hotel, scheduled to open in August just off the Strip. Units include fireplaces, whirlpool baths and private terraces. Meeting groups have the choice of five rooms and a boardroom, for up to 120 guests, or can hold smaller gatherings in the hotel’s suites. Misora, the 17th-floor rooftop terrace, can hold up to 250 guests.
The hotel is positioning itself as a luxury solution for groups with fewer than 300 participants, which are often neglected by larger venues that cater to the big meetings and conventions flocking to Vegas. “If you’re a group with under one thousand room-nights on peak, the bigger hotel players won’t book you outside of a year,” says director of sales Nancy McDonald. “If you’re small, they make you wait.”
In April, Station Casino’s Red Rock Casino, Resort and Spa debuted in nearby Summerlin. It offers 414 guestrooms, including 45 suites, and by December will have a total of 850 rooms. The hotel houses 94,000 square feet of meeting space for up to 1,500 attendees, with many rooms featuring glass walls to allow in natural light and views of the neighboring mountains and three-acre backyard pool.
The hotel’s 25,000-square-foot Spa at Red Rock Las Vegas will add another 10,000 square feet by early 2007 and is one of the few facilities in Las Vegas that offers Asiatsu treatment, a barefoot massage technique. As for gaming, Red Rock has more than 3,200 slot and video gaming machines, 60 gaming tables and a poker room. In addition, it offers nine different restaurants, including an outpost of the famous Salt Lick BBQ from Austin, Texas. The Cherry Nightclub is operated by Rande Gerber’s Midnight Oil Company.
Ideal for both group and individual incentives, the new Fantasy Tower at the Palms Casino Resort is set to completely open by August and will offer exactly what its name promises: high-end themed suites fit for a fantasy. The 10,000-square-foot, two-floor Hardwood Suite comes complete with a basketball court extending to a regulation three-point stripe (going for $25,000 per night); the $15,000 King Pin Suite has two regulation bowling lanes. The new 347-room tower will also include a spa, an 8,000-square-foot recording studio, 60,000 square feet of meeting space, and by September, a Playboy Club, the first in 25 years, on the top floor, featuring a retractable roof.
The Palms opened its new high-end gaming lounge, The Mint, in February and broke ground on its $650 million expansion project’s second tower, Palms Place, earlier this spring. The 599-condominium hotel is to be completed by late 2007.
MGM’s The Mirage is midway through a renovation project that has already brought a new gaming lounge, two new restaurants and the custom-built theater to showcase LOVE, the new Cirque du Soleil show featuring music of The Beatles. The restaurant Japonais will open later this summer.
Reno/Lake Tahoe
“Scheduled for a rebirth is the Lake Tahoe area,” says Carlson’s McKenna. “The renovation of the Hyatt Lake Tahoe [completed in 2003] and the changes going on near the South Shore area are causing people to take another look at the gaming on the Nevada side of the lake. It’s a refreshed, refurbished, new product.”
Changes include the transformation of Caesars Tahoe into MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa in May, following a renovation to the hotel’s 440 rooms that each now feature a “Bleu Cloud Bed,” free wireless Internet access and Aveda products. The hotel also has 16,000 square feet of meeting space, a 40,000-square-foot casino with a new poker room, a 1,500-seat theater, new nightclubs and restaurants, a new sports pavilion debuting this summer, the Onsen Spa, and a yacht able to accommodate up to 45 people for special events.
Coming in 2007 is the $300 million expansion of the Peppermill Hotel Casino, adding 600 rooms in an all-suite tower, a new spa and fitness center, 21,000 square feet of added casino space, a new 65,500-square-foot convention center, a renovated entrance and lobby, and additional retail and entertainment facilities.
Harrah’s, which also owns Harveys Lake Tahoe, is in the midst of a guestroom renovation due to be completed in 2007 at both properties, which are connected by an underground walkway. Harrah’s most recently remodeled its 20,000-square-foot events center.
U.S. EAST COAST
Atlantic City
In addition to a state smoking ban in all public places that went into effect on April 1—with the exception of casinos—the latest news coming from this New Jersey city on the shore is the approval by NJ Transit of an express train, taking just 2.5 hours for the trip between New York City’s Pennsylvania Station and the Atlantic City Rail Terminal. Currently, a trip via rail requires a change of trains in Trenton, N.J., and Philadelphia.
No price has yet been set for the future rail service, which could begin by the end of 2007. In the meantime, there are plenty of expansion and renovation projects under way that will be welcoming visitors long before the first express train pulls into the station.
The three-year-old Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, in partnership with Boyd Gaming and MGM Mirage, has been such a success that it is already in the midst of a $525 million expansion project. Phase I, ready this month, adds more than 36,000 square feet of casino space, 36 gaming tables, 500 slot machines, an 85-table poker room—complete with a tournament area and bleachers that unfold from the walls for events—the new nightclub Mur.Mur and three celebrity-chef restaurants, led by Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay and Michael Mina, making his East Coast debut.
“There’s no new meeting space with this phase of the expansion,” says director of sales Bob Franklin, “but each of the new restaurants have private dining areas, which we’ll be able to use for groups that currently hold breakfast and lunch events in our meeting rooms, which expands our ability to grow our meeting space.”
A new tower, The Water Club at Borgata, will open in late 2007 and feature a 785-room luxury hotel, with 35 suites, four with their own mini-theaters; 18,000 square feet of new meeting space; and a two-story, 36,000-square-foot spa with 15 treatment rooms.
Opening later this year, The Pier at Caesars will bring Las Vegas–style shopping to Atlantic City’s historic Boardwalk. Connected to the 1,400-room Caesars Atlantic City by a skybridge, The Pier will be home to luxury retailers including Gucci, Hugo Boss and Louis Vuitton. Also debuting are nine restaurants, including Philadelphia restaurateur Stephen Starr’s Buddakan and The Continental.
Harrah’s Atlantic City has announced a $550 million expansion project that will add a 964-guestroom tower, to be completed in 2008, along with a Red Door spa, indoor pool, nightclub and retail stores.
Trump Entertainment Resorts is planning a new 800-room tower for its Trump Taj Mahal that will be completed in 2008. The company also is in the midst of a two-year, $110 million capital improvement campaign for its Taj Mahal, Trump Marina and Trump Plaza hotels, adding retail space, gaming areas, restaurants, and meeting and convention space.
Connecticut
As gaming continues to grow, Native American properties are pouring earnings into their products. This spring, Foxwoods Resort Casino, run by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, signed a deal with MGM Mirage for a $700 million project that will add a new 850-room hotel tower to the property in Mashantucket, along with more than 150,000 square feet of meeting space, a new 50,000-square-foot casino, a 5,000-seat theater, four restaurants, nightclubs and a spa, by 2008.
Not to be left behind, the Mohegan Tribe’s Mohegan Sun Casino & Resort in Uncasville—celebrating its 10th anniversary this year—is considering expansion plans of its own and has hired a New York architectural firm to design them. “We’re in the middle of a master planning process which will further evolve Mohegan Sun,” says CEO Mitchell Etess. “The demand far exceeds supply, and we’re always assessing the market.”
GULF COAST
With the help of new legislation and an entrepreneurial spirit, the Mississippi Gulf Coast is on the mend from Hurricane Katrina.
“When the Gulf Coast was first being developed, all you saw were construction cranes everywhere. Now the cranes are back,” says Linda Stewart, senior manager, conventions for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The return of the cranes is an indication that it won’t be long until the Gulfport and Biloxi areas are fully revitalized after the devastation caused by Katrina. Another indication is the return of the casinos, which, in many instances, are the reason for the cranes. As part of the rebuilding effort, the state has approved legislation allowing casinos to be built on land. Previously gaming halls were limited to barges on the water. The change has resulted in expansive casino construction in locations that had included hotels and resorts. At press time, the Palace Casino Resort, Isle of Capri Casino Resort and the IP Hotel and Casino had all reopened, with the Beau Rivage, Boomtown Casino Biloxi, Treasure Bay and Copa Casino following later this summer. In 2007, the Hard Rock Casino will open with 318 rooms and 24 suites, plus a spa and fitness center. Foxwoods Resort is investing $1 billion to develop a casino and condominium hotel on the former site of the Broadwater Hotel. Golden Nugget is building on Cadet Point, and Harrah’s is moving into the former site of the Bayview Hotel.
CARIBBEAN
While few, if any, planners actually choose a Caribbean destination for its gaming facilities, casinos are a staple in many properties across the region.
Upcoming developments include an expansion at the Atlantis, Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Set to open in 2007 are two new luxury towers, the first in April, with 600 suites with balconies, walk-in rain showers, and many of the amenities common in today’s new developments. A 495-unit condo hotel, built in partnership with Turnberry Associates, is scheduled to debut later that fall. In addition, the hotel is adding 9,000 square feet to its casino, opening a new Mandara Spa with 34 treatment rooms; and building a new conference center, which will add 100,000 square feet of meeting space to its already ample supply. The new space will include a one of the largest ballrooms in all the Caribbean, at 50,000 square feet.
Baha Mar, the big development project first announced last summer for Cable Beach in the Bahamas, has since expanded its plans even further. Through partnerships with Harrah’s Entertainment and Starwood Hotels & Resorts, the development will house an unprecedented four properties from Starwood—a W Hotel, St. Regis, Westin and Sheraton—along with a Caesars Palace Hotel and the renovated Wyndham Nassau Resort, for a total of 3,550 guestrooms. The Caesars Casino will be 95,000 square feet, making it one of the largest in the Caribbean. Baha Mar will also feature three luxury spas. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 2007.
MONACO
This luxurious city on the Mediterranean has gained two new spas in recent months. The 8,600-square-foot Le Spa Cinq Mondes, located in the new Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort, includes treatments from Indonesia (Balinese), North Africa, China, Brazil and Japan. The two-and-a-half-hour Royal Lulur Ritual from Indonesia dates to the 16th century and was originally reserved for royals on their wedding day.
In April, the recently renovated Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo debuted its ESPA Spa, the first of its kind in Monaco. The three-level facility includes 13 treatment rooms, oversized bathtubs, hammam-style steam showers and a heated seawater pool. ESPA’s spa cuisine menu is under the direction of Michelin-star-chef Joël Robuchon.
Elsewhere in the principality, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts has embarked on a 42 million euro refurbishment of the Fairmont Monte Carlo. By next May, the property is getting a new lobby and reception area, a new lobby bar, and upgrades to 293 of its 619 rooms and suites. A new spa also is under consideration.
ASIA
The big developments from MGM Mirage, Wynn and the Las Vegas Sands in Macau are going ahead as scheduled, but the hot news out of Asia is the Singapore government’s much-anticipated announcement on May 26 that the Las Vegas Sands is the winning bid for the city-state’s first-ever mixed-use casino. The $3.6 billion Marina Bay Sands, scheduled to open in 2009, will feature 2,500 hotel rooms, 1.2 million square feet of flexible meeting space, one million square feet of retail space and three large entertainment venues.
“I was in Singapore for the announcement and it was very exciting,” says Carlson’s McKenna. “Throughout Southeast Asia, there is great interest in gaming. The Las Vegas operators led the expansion into Macau and now into Singapore. Both are being looked at by U.S. groups. And even though it’s a long haul to get there, having just done it, I’d turn around and go again tomorrow if I could.”
Date Posted: 10-Jul-2006
