Harrah's Merger Adds Las Vegas Meetings Dimension

Following this summer's merger of Caesars Palace, the Flamingo, Bally's and Bally's Paris hotels and casinos in Las Vegas with Harrah's and the Rio, meeting buyers have a unique opportunity to negotiate deals that make use of multiple facilities offered by a consolidated salesforce.

Harrah's now has the largest Las Vegas portfolio to leverage its combined strength to facilitate meetings sales.

The merger of Caesars Entertainment under the Harrah's Entertainment umbrella created the world's largest provider of branded casino entertainment, but combining 17,000 rooms and more than 1 million square feet of meeting space did not create the largest single portfolio of Las Vegas properties. That distinction is held by MGM Mirage, which includes Circus Circus, Bellagio, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grande, Mirage, Monte Carlo, New York, NY, and Treasure Island.

In addition to the merger, which was spearheaded by Harrah's Entertainment western divisional president Tom Jenkins in late 2001 and officially closed on June 13, Caesars and the Rio completed substantial additions to their meeting spaces this summer. In August, Caesars finished adding 80,000 square feet of space, bringing its total meeting space to 240,000 square feet, with three executive boardrooms and seven ballrooms. Caesars' largest ballroom is 36,000 square feet. Caesars also has 38,000 square feet of outdoor event space.

At the Rio, meeting space expansion added 60,000 square feet of meeting space for a total of 146,000 square feet. The Rio's largest ballroom is 56,000 square feet. Space at the Rio can be segmented into 51 breakout spaces of 400 to 500 square feet. The convention center area offers wireless Internet connections and T1 lines.

At both properties, the additions were intended to be relatively seamless, with new carpeting and fixtures designed to match existing facilities.

The six meetings service departments in July were consolidated into one sales organization, with convention services, catering and banquet services all reporting to sales. Heading that organization and a 50-person salesforce is Michael Massari, vice president of Las Vegas meetings, sales and operations. Massari sees the structure of the company as "one hotel split into six different facilities. I'm not as worried about the individual property as the six as a whole. Customers can leverage themselves better with us than at major hotel chains in Las Vegas."

Reporting to Massari is Jordan Clark, Las Vegas director of sales, who oversees group and leisure sales. Reporting to Clark are director of sales for the east Todd Gagnon, Midwestern region head Wendy Bennecke and Drew Varga, Western regional vice president of sales, who is responsible for the six Las Vegas properties. Also responsible for the six properties is Jennifer Abdinoor, director of sales for citywide groups.

The integrated sales structure allows buyers to get quotes from all six properties through one call and create one master bill that includes events at several different sites. A meeting buyer could reserve a block of rooms at Paris Las Vegas, meeting space at Caesars and a reception on the Rio's rooftop Voodoo Lounge.

Massari said a corporate group from Walgreens recently used Paris, Bally's and Caesars facilities for different events that were part of one meeting and that Ryan Air Conditioning is planning an event that will use meeting and event spaces at the Rio and Harrah's and at least one of the others. He said that the six properties have 56,000 meetings customers among them."To have functions at multiple properties and one master bill is something that people are excited about and we will see a lot more taking advantage of it," Massari said.

Rich Benninger, executive director of catering and convention services at Caesars Palace, said the marbled and tiled hotel and casino is the high-end product in the portfolio, with the Rio, Paris and Bally's at the next level, followed by the Flamingo and Harrah's. The shuttle service that now runs between the Rio and Harrah's will be expanded to stop at all six properties this fall.

The benefit of combining these forces, said Benninger, is the "broad variety of opportunities it offers for events within meetings." He said meetings amount to about $90 million in annual revenue for Caesar's, about 65 percent of which has been corporate.