Venetian And Aladdin Place Bets On More Mtg. Space

<B>Venetian And Aladdin Place Bets On More Mtg. Space</B>

By Judy Jacobs

With expansion plans at the Venetian and a new spa planned for the Aladdin Resort & Casino, two of Las Vegas strip's hotels are in the process of improving what they offer to the meeting and incentive market.

The Venetian's popularity with meeting and incentive groups has been a major reason for its success. It also has led to plans to add more than 4,000 rooms and build an adjoining sister hotel. "We have a higher percentage of groups than any other hotel in Las Vegas," said Eric Bello, the hotel's vice president of sales and marketing. "Fifty-five percent to 60 percent of our market mix is groups."

The high figure for groups is not surprising, considering the hotel's extensive meeting facilities. Its Sands Expo and Venetian Congress Center total 1.7 million square feet, as much as some urban convention centers. The demand is so great that the hotel, as part of its expansion project is creating an additional 46 breakout rooms across from the 85,000-sq.-ft. Venetian Ballroom.

The Venetian also is adding 1,100 more guest rooms in a building being constructed on top of its current parking garage, in a project scheduled to be ready by Sept. 1, 2002. Phase II of the expansion will add another 3,036-room hotel tower. Tentatively named the Palazzo, it will be identical to the Venetian and be operated separately.

Bello is confident there is plenty of demand for the new rooms. "We have such a tremendous demand during the major trade shows that we need more rooms," he said. "The bulk of our groups is trade shows; the rest of the year is taken up by big corporate groups."

In spite of the economic slowdown, group business is still very strong. "We haven't seen much of a cutback on meetings and trade shows," Bello added. High-tech is particularly strong, and groups that have met at the hotel include Cisco, Oracle, Computer Associates, Nortel and Xerox. Other corporate sectors that have held their meetings at the Venetian include such pharmaceutical companies as Pfizer and Squibb, as well as financial institutions. Meeting sizes vary from 30 to 1,000 rooms, but the average is about 500 rooms per night.

Meanwhile, the Aladdin Resort and Casino, which opened last August, is building a 36,000-sq.-ft. state-of-the-art spa that will be ready in mid-September. The Aladdin owners hadn't originally intended to build a spa but changed their minds. "The original plan just had an exercise facility, but in the final stages of development, they decided to upgrade it," said Jim Loster, the hotel's vice president of convention sales. "We want to compete with the Bellagio, the Venetian and Mandalay Bay hotels, which are already operating spas."

The Aladdin always planned to target meetings and incentives, which now make up about 25 percent of its market mix. Although it has handled groups of up to 1,000 attendees, 250-room groups seem to be the norm.

The hotel's design, unique for Las Vegas, has been part of the reason for its success in the market, Loster said. "When the hotel was designed we had focus groups, and people said they didn't like walking too much and said how much trouble it is to get around some Las Vegas hotels. At the Aladdin, we have a stacked design. You're never more than seven doors away from an elevator. We have elevators in every wing. You also can go to the conference center without walking through the casino. That's totally unique for Las Vegas."

Its meeting facilities include a 75,000-sq.-ft. conference center and the 7,000-seat Theater for the Performing Arts. The theater is the only part of the previous Aladdin that didn't get blown up. Instead, the owners put $35 million into its renovation. In September, the Aladdin will open a 1,500-seat showroom.

Meanwhile, at least one other company is not so optimistic: MGM Mirage put on hold plans to build a hip Las Vegas strip mega-resort that would target generation Xers. It will concentrate instead on Atlantic City developments.

Meanwhile, Henderson, Las Vegas' neighbor with more than 200,000 people--the fastest growing city in the United States--also is a rapidly growing meeting and incentive destination.

"We currently have about 2,000 hotel rooms, but the number is expected to go up to between 5,000 and 7,000 by 2007," said Andrea Primo, director of sales of the Henderson Convention Center and Visitors Bureau.

A new Ritz-Carlton will be located on the edge of Henderson and 17 miles from the Las Vegas strip at Lake Las Vegas, the state's largest privately owned lake and the site of the Hyatt Lake Las Vegas, which opened in December. The Ritz will be part of a $500 million Mediterranean-themed multi-use development, modeled on hillside villages in Europe, to be known as The Village at MonteLago, that will include condominiums, office space and retail outlets.

Completion of the Ritz-Carlton is scheduled for the third quarter of 2002. In addition to 350 guest rooms, the hotel will include a casino, spa and 80 condominiums. The hotel's design highlight is a bridge replicating Florence, Italy's Pontevecchio Bridge. The Ritz-Carlton's bridge will span the lake's inner harbor and have 75 guest rooms, each with lake and mountain views, along with a pedestrian promenade and retail shopping.

Hyatt's Henderson-based Lake Las Vegas also is likely to be a destination that will have great appeal to corporate meetings. "We originally thought it would be 50 percent leisure and 50 percent groups," said director of sales Robert Purdy, "but it has been 70 percent groups, and we expect that trend to continue. Twenty-four percent of the group business is incentives and that number is increasing.