Plan Your Meetings

Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino Vice President of Sales and Marketing Richard Harper says that contrary to popular belief, Las Vegas is not a ghost town. “In terms of occupancy, we’re still running in the mid-90s.”

The misperception, he says, stems from the fact that Las Vegas lost millions of dollars of potential revenue from meeting cancellations after President Obama criticized TARP-recipients planning to meet in the city.

Companies are still shy about bringing meetings to Las Vegas, but Harper says things are picking up. “It’s only a matter of time before a handful of high-profile companies decide to come to Las Vegas.” After that, he predicts, bookings will rebound.

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When did you start to notice the market turning?

For us, it really started back in August, when the news hit about AIG. Then there were some folks dealing with economic challenges in the fourth quarter, trying to protect earnings, and taking a wait and see approach. From that point forward to about the end of February, we were spending most of our time trying to hold on to conventions, keep them from canceling, and renegotiating terms, where appropriate, to save the business.

What was the biggest challenge you faced?

The tough part was keeping a team motivated with all these facets out of their control. They jumped on it, put their heads down and never wavered from putting the focus on the customer.

It brought our team, property, destination and industry closer together in a way we’ve never seen. It wasn’t Las Vegas versus Orlando. It was the meeting industry standing together. I think we’re all much stronger [as a] result of that.

How did you keep morale among your sales team high?

One day a week, I let them wear jeans. And there was a lot of communication, but it came down to pure honesty — bringing them into a room on a regular basis and saying, “This is where we’re at and what we’re dealing with, and we have two choices: We can [give up] or take a leadership role and show the rest of the destination, the rest of the industry why we’re the leaders we are.” It [wasn’t] a terribly hard conversation; there was no sugar coating, no false expectations. Now, we’re producing at a level I’m extremely proud of, but it very easily could have gone in another direction.

In other destinations we’ve seen luxury properties hurting because luxury is no longer “cool.” They’re sending RFPs from d/b/a names that say “conference center” instead of “resort.” Are you seeing that in Las Vegas?

All over the world, high-name high-profile properties are taking “resort” out of their name, and I think that’s a huge mistake. Don’t change [the] brand you’ve worked so hard to build.

If you want to reward your top employees, do you think they’re going to be rewarded by going to anything less than the top resort?

I think [luxury properties] should rally and get behind what they do exceptionally well. Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed — be true to your brand and know that this will pass.

Why should planners bring groups to Las Vegas?

Anything to do with perception is relatively short-term in nature. What the city is doing exceptionally well is reminding people of the value of doing business [here]. All the things that people loved about Las Vegas haven’t changed, they’ve just gotten more affordable.

Accessibility is key in this time-poverished world we live in. When you want to motivate someone, you want to get them out of the airport and into a suite immediately. When you get them into a resort property [here], you don’t have to create a themed event in a ballroom. You have the entire city of Las Vegas for dinearounds, shows and golf — [it is] right at your fingertips.