LAS VEGAS -- Despite a soft economy, the city's tourism picture
continues to remain bright, a Wall Street airline and travel
analyst told more than 100 travel industry executives who met last
month at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino for Travel Weekly's Las
Vegas Leadership Forum.
Thanks to Wynn Las Vegas, casino developer Steve Wynn's
multibillion-dollar casino resort that is slated to open in 2005,
interest in the destination will remain strong, said Ray Neidl, a
director with Blaylock & Partners, LP.
"We're all looking toward the [destination's] next big
razzle-dazzle type of project ... to get more headlines," he
said.
In the meantime, Neidl said, "room occupancy rates have been
pretty good through the recession, and the room rates that were off
are coming back now. The big problem is that, even with the crowds
here, [the last few months] people weren't spending the type of
money that they usually do [for activities such as shows or
gambling].
"The volume here is good in Las Vegas," Neidl said. "You just
have to get the spending back up."
Scheduled airlift to the city -historically viewed as a
challenge because it is a low-yield market for the major carriers
-- remains stable, thanks to the recent attentions of discount
airlines, he said.
"A lot of the big discount carriers based in the East are now
looking westward," Neidl said. "Some of them are just starting
service to Las Vegas, including AirTran, Jet Blue and Spirit
Airlines."
Within the city itself, he noted, transportation has become
something of an issue -- especially along the Strip, where traffic
on already-congested Las Vegas Boulevard regularly slows to a crawl
at certain times of the day and night.
The city's new monorail system, however, which is set to begin
operating along the Strip next year, will be a boon for locals and
visitors alike.
"It will, I think, make things a lot better for people who want
to move from casino to casino," Neidl said.
In her luncheon presentation to forum attendees, Vicki Freed,
senior vice president of sales and marketing for Carnival Cruise
Lines, challenged Las Vegas hoteliers and tourism officials -- who
a decade ago started to position the city as family friendly but
now are marketing Las Vegas as an adults-only destination -- to
again embrace the family market.
"You folks started down that path and didn't live up to it," she
said. "If Las Vegas really decided to dedicate the resources to
being a family destination, if hotels here said we can keep the
kids busy morning, noon and night" with such programs as kids'
camps, they would be very successful, she said.
"Today's dual-income working parents want to travel with their
kids," Freed said. "Those hotels that figure that out will have a
huge increase [in revenue]."
The event was an addition to Travel Weekly's Leadership Forum
series, which includes such destinations as Mexico and Hawaii, and
"allows us to share key [tourism] issues and trends so we can all
make better decisions," Travel Weekly publisher Robert Sullivan
told audience members.
Tour ops discuss lure of value-adds
By Amy Baratta
LAS VEGAS -- Dynamic packaging and the survival of wholesalers
in today's marketplace were just a few of the topics discussed by a
panel of tour company executives at Travel Weekly's Las Vegas
Leadership Forum here.
The following were highlights of the discussion:
Certified Vacations has hit the jackpot in the Las Vegas market
with dynamic packaging -- the newest buzz term in the travel
industry -- according to John Hanratty, the company's vice
president of marketing services.
"The city is constantly evolving [and] is in the process of
reincarnating itself as an adult mecca as evidenced by the new
advertising [campaign]," he said. "It's our job to take that
message and relay it to our customers, which is easier said than
done. So, how do we get the message out?"
The answer, he said, is dynamic packaging.
"There's a big movement afoot to allow us to include other
amenities like a spa and other value-adds to spark additional
sales.
"One of the things that we tried about six months ago with one
of our partners turned out to be a very interesting test," he said.
"We partnered with one of our hoteliers here to deliver a
value-added package that included some casino match play tiered to
the room category [selected]. I can tell you that has been
extremely successful for us in the last six months -- our numbers
are up about 85%. It's a significant opportunity just to plug in on
the gaming side."
Aside from that, Hanratty said, the company has offered some
discounted coupons for fine dining in Las Vegas.
"I think where the industry is going to generate new business is
going to be in what we can offer our customers as a value- add," he
said. "The message also must be conveyed to our travel agent
partners that we offer more than the basic hotel and air
[packages]."
Las Vegas was the first market in which Certified tried out the
dynamic marketing concept, but Hanratty believes it won't be the
company's last.
"We actually kind of cut our teeth here to see whether or not it
would work," he said. "Since that point in time, we are now trying
to export that [idea] to the Caribbean and Mexico. I believe it
will work."
In an industry populated by large companies, being small does
have its advantages, said Kevin Eakin, president of Portland,
Ore.-based Travel Connection.
"We probably represent about 60,000 room nights a year in [this]
marketplace, which is probably close to a couple of weeks for the
rest of everyone [on the panel]," said Eakin, who noted that the
company's only distribution channel is the travel agent. "Being
small, we're able to get our message out [more easily] whether it
be by blast fax, blast e-mails and such. We've also recently turned
the tables a little bit and we are now actually calling our travel
agent partners and talking to them, updating them on what's going
on [in the destination]."
This personal approach has been very successful, he added.
The company also has approached the Internet with an
if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em attitude, setting up a Web site
complete with a booking engine.
"Right now, we're getting a little over 17% of our business over
the Internet," Eakin said. "It's been amazing for us. Our call
volume continues to [decrease], but the number of hits to our Web
site and our booking engine is up 10- to 12-fold. The Internet, we
know, is here to stay and we've embraced that."
The same should be said for the big guys as well, said Beth
Shultis, president and chief executive officer of MLT
Vacations.
"Wholesalers need to participate in the Internet -- that's a
reality check," she said. "We've seen an ever-growing number of our
agency partners actually do their business with us in that manner,
and they like that a lot. It's a vehicle to deliver fresh
information, so as wholesalers we need to make sure we've got
functionality, and we've got content in there that makes that a
growing vehicle for us.
"The second part of that equation is making sure the product
stays attractive," she said. "We need to watch the pricing. Certain
destinations, particularly Mexico and the Caribbean, are stepping
up price competition with Las Vegas, and for us to make Las Vegas
work, we need to have that price and value."
For wholesalers to not only survive but to thrive in the current
marketplace, Shultis recommended that they develop and get to know
their distribution channels.
"Our key distribution channel is travel agents -- the vast
majority of our bookings for Las Vegas come in through that
channel," she said. "That means that we need to develop programs,
policies, different technologies and educational forums to keep
everybody up to speed in the agency partnerships that we have and
to make sure that they [have the tools to] sell our product with
confidence."
The more information that wholesalers give to travel agents, she
said, the more opportunity they have to upsell their clients.
"Add-ons, a move up in room category -- [these perks] really
give the customer a reason to spend more cash."
Wholesalers, Shultis said, "have got to deliver volume and,
quite frankly, a better customer to Las Vegas to make it work. The
volume stuff -- that's pretty obvious, but customer value, I think,
is a little bit trickier.
"For wholesalers, most of our customers are arriving by air. ...
They're going to be signing up here for three-, four-, five-, even
six-night stays. They have more time on the ground, they have more
time to think about where they're going to stay, they're going to
buy a little bit more expensive hotel category, and they're going
to spend a little bit more on casinos and food.
"So for a wholesaler to survive, we've really got to turn that
around to our advantage and add all those extra elements to make a
great experience."
In a marketplace where some travel partners also turn out to be
competitors, Gogo Worldwide Vacations goes so far as to identify
profit streams for its travel agents, said Tom Ludington, director
of marketing for the company's Las Vegas, Reno and ski
products.
"Identify your partners -- you've got to find a partner you can
deal with who will support you and who you can sell with
confidence," he said.
The company then plays matchmaker, if you will.
"We've been identifying key agents and then connecting them with
key partners that make sense from a demographic standpoint and from
a price and product standpoint," Ludington said.