Starwood Hotels & Resorts last month made Las Vegas headlines for the second month in a row when it announced plans to rebrand the Aladdin Resort, located on the Las Vegas Strip. The Aladdin will be reborn as the Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino, a Sheraton Hotel. No date has been set yet for the reopening. In March, Starwood said it would reflag the former Maxim Hotel, located just off the Strip, as the Westin Casuarina
(BTN, April 28).For Starwood, announcing two hotels in Las Vegas back to back is ironic. Starwood has not had a hotel in the well-known destination since it sold Caesars Palace and the Desert Inn in 1999 and 2000, respectively. For the Sheraton brand, the location on the high-visibility Strip will bring added brand awareness. Last year, Sheraton began implementing a new enhanced room design in its properties, featuring an upgraded bed called the Sheraton Sweet Sleeper, as well as a new customer service program. Both initiatives will be part of the Planet Hollywood project.
In other Las Vegas development news, Best Western International in February added the Tuscany Suites and Casino, located two blocks from the Strip, to its membership association of 4,000 hotels. Up to now, Best Western has had other properties in the Las Vegas market, including one at McCarren Airport, but none in this central a location.
Considering Las Vegas' reputation for super-sized attractions, the three projects fit right in. The Aladdin has 2,567 rooms, the Westin 825 rooms and the Tuscany Suites 700 suites, which makes it the largest property in the Best Western system.
The Tuscany is of particular interest to planners of midsize meetings, since it includes 30,000 square feet of meeting space and can handle groups of up to 350. Long known as a site for large, citywide conventions attracting thousands of attendees, Las Vegas has been reinventing itself during the past few years as a destination for more modest-size meetings, and the Tuscany is the latest evidence of that trend. The Westin Casuarina also is laying claim to the mid-size group business with five contiguous meeting rooms that can accommodate a capacity of 470 attendees theater style. The property is undergoing renovations in anticipation of reopening in the fourth quarter of this year.
"Best Western hotels aren't always known for extensive meeting space, so in that sense the Tuscany is an exception," said Christopher Cope, managing director of worldwide sales for North America. "But one of the characteristics of a membership association such as ours is that many of the properties are one of a kind. In this case, the meeting space is a point of distinction as are the all-suite configuration and restaurants onsite." As a brand, Best Western is considered midprice without food and beverage, but as Cope pointed out, the distinctions aren't always hard and fast.
Hampton Inn is a second midprice brand staking out the midsize meetings market in Las Vegas. The Hampton Inn Tropicana, located five minutes from the Strip, last October opened a conference facility adjoining the 319-room hotel called the Southwest Event Center. As with the new Best Western, the Hampton, which opened in mid-2000, is one of the largest properties in the Hampton Inn system.
The conference facility contains a 4,000-sq.-ft. ballroom divisible by two, plus another 1,500 square feet of pre-function space. "This is in addition to the four meeting rooms we had in the main building," said Ed Kirby, the Hampton's director of sales. "Planners appreciate the flexibility. Another plus is that we're close to all the Las Vegas gaming activity on the Strip, but at the same time we're away from it, so attendees aren't distracted during the day, allowing planners more control over the group."
The average size meeting the Hampton has booked in the new facility is 50 to 100 people, which typically means a comparable number of guest rooms. "The group bookings have been a nice balance to the transient demand, especially in this economy," Kirby said. The hotel has no banqueting capabilities of its own, so it works with an outside caterer that provides working lunches as well as sit-down dinners. Complimentary continental breakfast is available to all guests as a Hampton brand standard.
"With groups this size, there's no question we're a niche player in the overall Las Vegas market," Kirby said. "In fact, for the large convention hotels on the Strip, bookings this size that come in too soon can get in the way because they want to be able to accommodate any large pieces of business that come their way."