Vegas: Temperature rising

Everyone likes being pursued, and Las Vegas is after you, meeting planners. Due to lagging numbers, the city formerly known as “Sin City” is looking to change its image and draw you in.

The economy, in addition to a recent wave of “Sin City” criticism, has had negative effects on the city’s meetings industry. In an effort to promote Las Vegas as a city where serious business is done, the convention bureau is launching a $1 million ad campaign emphasizing why it is a good decision to hold meetings and conventions in the city. So, look for deals, discounts and reasons to bet on Vegas as your group’s destination.

If you build it, they will come
Look around Las Vegas and you’ll quickly notice as many construction cranes as casinos. Even in these uncertain economic times, dozens of new buildings are being erected and old ones are being overhauled.

To give you a quick glimpse at the many changes on the horizon, we’ll start with the granddaddy of them all: CityCenter. Still set for completion in late 2009, this $8.6 billion city-within-a-city has been described as the most expensive private development in U.S. history. It, too, is on shaky ground though. While MGM Mirage paid off $200 million on the project March 24 — the amount was initially supposed to be split with its intended partner, Dubai World — an ongoing legal battle between the two has hit Las Vegas with possibly another stroke of bad luck. Jeremy Aguero, a principal analyst with Applied Analysis, a Nevada-based advisory services firm whose clients have included MGM, is still looking on the bright side. “Right now, there is no indication that CityCenter is not going to be completed,” he said in a press release.

If the project continues, it will boast a 61-story gaming resort, ARIA; luxury non-gaming hotels Mandarin Oriental and Vdara Hotel, which is scheduled to be the first property to open in early October 2009; Veer Towers, the center’s only strictly residential buildings; and Crystals, a 500,000-sq. ft. retail and entertainment district. A collaboration between eight top international architects, the 18 million-sq. ft. complex, with a hard-to-come-by-anymore 1,200 feet of frontage on Las Vegas Boulevard, will boast everything from showrooms to spas, business centers to dog parks.

The newly minted M Resort, Spa and Casino, a luxe, off-Strip lodging with 390 guestrooms and suites, nine restaurants, a 14-screen movie theater and other four-star amenities opened March 1 with plenty of fanfare. With more than 60,000 square feet of meeting and conference space, the resort can accommodate small- to medium-size groups and large groups that want to take over the complex.

Another recent off-Strip addition is the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa, where the 2009 Connect Marketplace will be held in August. Guests rave about everything from its “sumptuous rooms” to its “fantastic pool area.” Better yet, it has an offshoot of one of the great barbecue joints of all time, The Salt Lick.

Las Vegas’ Clark County is currently the largest county in the country without its own world-class performing arts center. That will change sometime in 2011, when work on the Smith Center for the Performing Arts is scheduled to be completed. The future home of the Nevada Ballet Theatre and Las Vegas Philharmonic is one of the largest art projects in the state’s history and will include three separate performance spaces.

An elegant 3,800-room casino resort set to debut this fall, the Fontainebleau Las Vegas comes from the company that owns and operates the famed Fontainebleau in Miami. Boasting its own 3,200-seat theater, the hotel has in-room attractions that include marble bathrooms, custom artwork, flat-panel TVs and 20-inch Apple iMac computers. The Gardens of Fontainebleau, a hospitality garden accessible from six meeting rooms, is one of the highlights of 400,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor conference space available at the resort.

Extreme makeovers
In the city that never sleeps, neither does the competition, so area hotels and attractions are constantly revamping and upgrading. For example:
The Flamingo recently unveiled its new Go Rooms. With a decor described as “South Beach meets Austin Powers,” the rooms are designed to attract a hipper, younger clientele, drawn in by the mod white-and-pink color scheme, stereo stations with slots for your iPod, remote-controlled drapes and shears, high-tech bathroom mirrors with built-in TVs, and $160 a night room rates. Also new are its one- and two-bedroom suites, which feature niceties like bamboo floors and floor-to-ceiling windows. Even at $1,200 a night, Travel + Leisure called the two-bedroom suites, with ample room for meetings or small groups to share, one of the best values on the Strip.

The Excalibur, once the largest hotel in the world and one of the less expensive spots on the Strip today, has renovated its guestrooms as well, subbing its medieval-themed interiors with softer palettes and patterns, and stocking the rooms with plasma TVs. Its meeting space was recently spruced up too, and can be arranged to accommodate small groups easily. Multiple variations of the grand ballroom can serve groups as small as 30 or as large as 800, and the hotel’s restaurants, pool or midway can be closed for private use.

The rooms at the Riviera are changing as well.  The hotel’s meeting and convention center, which ranges from classroom space to theater space, was included in the multi-million dollar rejuvenation project. The Golden Nugget, a downtown fixture since 1946, is still glowing after unveiling its $100 million transformation last year, including renovations to its meeting rooms, which can accommodate 15 to 1,300 guests, and its new Grand Ballroom. Notable are the expanded spa, salon and fitness areas, renovated lobby and showroom, and new VIP lounge. Perhaps most notable, though, is the pumped-up swimming pool, dubbed The Tank, which boasts new cabanas, eateries, a three-story tube slide and a 200,000-gallon shark tank.

Even the famed volcano at the Mirage, which has been entertaining visitors with its fiery eruptions since 1989, has gotten a facelift. Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, Indian tabla sensation Zakir Hussain and the Fountains of Bellagio design firm WET were part of the team behind the new attraction.

It’s showtime

Once you are settled, the rest of Vegas awaits. Stick to the amenities available in whichever hotel your meeting or convention is held in, or  venture out into the bright and shining lights where you’ll find plenty of options. Beginning in late May, Carlos Santana joins a long list of top-name entertainers to become a mainstay on the Strip. The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino launches Santana as the first rock and roll resident artist in Las Vegas with the new show “Supernatural Santana: A Trip Through the Hits.” Santana’s 36 performances a year through 2010 will feature the 11-time Grammy winner’s hits and famous guitar skills. The Broadway sensation “The Lion King” is also finding a permanent home here in May. Mandalay Bay’s stage production brings the music and vibrancy of Africa to audiences with its larger than life puppets, costumes and breathtaking performances adapted from the Disney animated movie.

For more information about planning a meeting in Las Vegas, visit here.

Photo courtesy Las Vegas News Bureau.