Betting on meetings.

Meeting destinations are adding gaming. Gaming destinations are adding attractions. It all means one thing: They want your convention business.

"Americans love to gamble," says Sharon Gordon. As president of the International Gaming Vendors Association, Atlantic City, New Jersey, she knows whereof she speaks. If it seems that every jurisdiction in the country is either legalizing or thinking of legalizing some form of gambling, that's very nearly true. Including lotteries, every state except Hawaii and Utah has some form of legal gambling, and casinos are either authorized or already legal and operative in 21 states, in Puerto Rico, and in 7 Canadian provinces and territories.

As entertainment-style gambling in casinos and on riverboats is legalized in more and more areas, association executives' choice between destinations with gaming and those without gaming may disappear. New Orleans is adding riverboat gaming, Chicago and Houston are considering introducing casinos, Washington, D.C., voters will cast their ballots on a gaming initiative this year, and gaming is under consideration in Miami and Hawaii.

To the average association meeting planner, gaming is only one consideration in the complex process of arranging a conference. Facilities, accessibility, and "fit" are far more important, and the cities that want to boost their convention business realize that they need to offer a full package of services to attract association meetings. Several are doing exactly that.

Most jurisdictions adopt legal gambling because they want to increase their tax revenue, and destinations seeking more convention business are plowing part of that revenue back into improving facilities and services. In the established gaming destination of Atlantic City, New Jersey, for example, casino properties generate $2 per room night and non-casino properties provide $1 per room night, according to Marshall Murdaugh, executive vice president of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority. "That currently is generating more than $6.2 million a year," he says, "which gives us a very effective budget for developing sales and service programs for the meetings industry."

The good of gaming for a destination

Gaming helps a destination in two ways, says Joe Taylor, director of communications and membership for the Quad Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau, Rock Island, Illinois. Gaming taxes usually go into the state or county general fund, but "some of the taxes do go to hospitality services in an indirect way. In the case of Iowa, there is a provision in the law that a per-passenger fee goes to a not-for-profit-corporation, the Riverboat Development Authority. Since 1991 that authority has collected some $3 million," he says. The authority funds a variety of projects in the Quad Cities area (Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, and Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa), including public efforts in education, the arts, and tourism. Taylor's own office has used money from the authority to develop a new slide show for the Quad Cities welcome center and "some brochures we otherwise wouldn't be able to fund," he says.

The Quad Cities have had riverboat gaming for several years. They have recently opened the RiverCenter, a 79,000-square-foot convention center, in downtown Davenport. Says Taylor, "Riverboat gambling has been a catalyst for development. There are two [meeting] facilities that have come on line at least partly in response to riverboat gaming." The MARK of the Quad Cities, in Moline, opened in May 1995 and includes a 12,000-seat arena and a 60,000-square-foot convention center. It regularly books entertainers like Janet Jackson and Steve Miller, along with sporting events and corporate functions. The RiverCenter is more than doubling its meeting and trade show space, with the Quad City Plaza Hotel planning to add 220 rooms to the complex when it opens in 1995.

Elsewhere in the Midwest, Kansas City expects to open its own new convention center, the 40,000-square-foot Bartle Hall, at the end of this month, just after opening the Argosy Riverside Casino this spring. "Riverboat gaming is new for the state of Missouri," says Maxine Odell, director of public relations for the Kansas City Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We see it as another entertainment option for convention delegates."

So far, she says, the gaming and meetings industries are cooperating. "We're working with the riverboat companies," says Odell. "They're working with the convention center and have expressed an interest in marketing to convention planners and convention delegates."

New Orleans, already a convention leader, is adding hotel and meeting space as it adds riverboat gaming. "Today, there are 18 hotels under construction or in some form of planning stages in New Orleans alone," says Kenneth E. Pickering, chairman of the Louisiana Riverboat Gaming Commission. "Some are small hotels; some are very large. There's no question that the gaming industry has spurred that development."

The gaming industry is definitely beginning to see the potential advantage of catering to meetings, affirms Arthur Chernov, who opened the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and now is vice president of marketing for the Turnberry Isle Resort north of Miami. "The newer hotels are getting very smart, and they're building a lot of meeting space because they understand that, midweek, they need the group business."

Understanding a key distinction

With gaming on the rise and gaming destinations on the hunt for increased convention business, key factors for the association meeting planner are the type and accessibility of gaming in a destination. Las Vegas, for instance, is the nation's first and glitziest gaming city, and like Atlantic City in the East, it has large casino hotels that offer in-house gaming as well as access to meeting space. Many newer gaming destinations, such as the Quad Cities, offer independent gaming boats that cruise the waterways but that are not linked to any of the local hospitality businesses.

This distinction matters to the association meeting planner because the economics of a casino hotel are different from those of a convention hotel. "Room rates in casino properties are usually less than in hotels that don't have casinos," says Chernov. "It's not that it subsidizes the rooms, but it generates revenue, so you can look for less revenue from your rooms in a gaming destination." As a result, room rates are priced to entice gamblers rather than cover all the property's operating costs.

Casino hotels do have their drawbacks, however. Unlike most business hotels, casino hotels value their weekend nights more than the midweek nights and charge accordingly. Over a weekend, booking a block of rooms is tough indeed. "You can't get the Saturday night stayover," says Stephen Schultz, convention and expositions director for the National Electric Contractors Association, Bethesda, Maryland. Schultz is looking at Las Vegas for 1998. "You can't book your block of rooms, especially if you have board meetings prior to the meeting. They discourage it." Admits Van Heffner, president of the Nevada Hotel and Motel Association, "It is difficult to get large room blocks on weekends."

Longer meetings have more clout in extending over a weekend than short ones, though, so not all associations have difficulty staying over Saturday. "My understanding is that it's hard to get weekend contracts," says Karen Weeks, director of conventions and meetings for the National Association of Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling Contractors, Alexandria, Virginia. NAPHCC meets in Las Vegas every four to six years, and Weeks is taking the association's 1994 meeting there. "Our people generally come in Tuesday and stay until Sunday; because we stay so long, we tend not to have an issue. We've used Bally's, so we're repeat business for them."

Organizations that can meet during the week will find good values in gaming cities, says Murdaugh, of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority. "Many casinos are aggressively seeking to book meetings, offering special corporate, all-inclusive packages." In Atlantic City, "the corporate meetings that are able to meet during the week have some very well-designed facilities [constructed] with the meeting planner in mind." The time of year also matters when meeting in Atlantic City; winter weekends are much easier to reserve than similar rooms in the high season.

Meeting aboard riverboats

Riverboat gaming poses an entirely different set of parameters for the association planner. Although the riverboat gaming in a city may boost the convention and visitors bureau's activities and help improve local facilities, riverboats have no effect on room rates or space availability, and floating casinos usually are remote enough from the meeting site that including gaming in the meeting requires using it as a special event or evening recreation option. That means planners who want to include gaming in their meetings may have to make specific arrangements to bring attendees to the riverboats.

"It's a different audience from a casino," says Gordon, of the International Gaming Vendors Association. "A casino in a hotel has more of a captive audience. With riverboats, people go to historic landings in other areas. They have the opportunity to go out on a riverboat, go to a cafe, eat at the nearby restaurants, and shop locally."

Meeting planners also may find that the riverboat casinos are willing to help them out with arrangements and costs: "A social fraternity is having a big meeting and they have listed us as one of the main attractions in Kansas City in their literature," says Michael W. Karr, general manager of the Argosy Riverside Casino, in Riverside, Missouri. "We are going to set up some transportation from their headquarters hotel to our site."

Some meeting planners find that they get better attendance at gaming destinations. "We always get a very good draw to Las Vegas," says Weeks, of NAPHCC. "We were in Anaheim last year, and when we did telemarketing, people said, 'I think we'll just save our money and come to Las Vegas.'" When planning the meeting, "we make sure to give [those attending] free time," she adds. For example, the closing banquet will be cut short to give members a chance to enjoy the city. She also has scheduled a seminar that offers information and advice about how games work.

NAPHCC last met in Las Vegas in 1989, but "there's a lot more to do than there was five years ago," says Weeks. "There are a lot of attractions besides just the gambling and the glitz." She says that 92 percent of NAPHCC members bring their spouses, which makes having a variety of entertainment options important.

Schultz, of the National Electric Contractors Association, agrees that Vegas is a draw. "We've had our biggest attendance in Las Vegas," he says. "I think gambling does draw people." He believes the climate and the city's nightlife also are important reasons people like the destination. On the other hand, he says, the presence of gaming so close at hand can work as a disadvantage for the meeting "because it does at times draw people [off] of the show floor and away from the meetings. You may draw more people [to the meeting city], but you may have more people who don't go to the meetings."

Gaming was not the main reason his organization decided on the Quad Cities, says Larry Mattusch, who chairs the National Association of County Engineers (NACE) 1995 Convention, which will be held in the Quad Cities. "The convenience of having the RiverCenter right downtown and, to a certain extent, the hotels," were the reasons he liked the city, he says. NACE had met twice in other places in the state in past years and wanted a different location for this meeting.

"Yes, [gaming] did feature in our planning," says Mattusch, adding that it's "just because of the President [riverboat] being there and gambling--that's one of the attractions we can use for one of our nighttime activities." Negotiating with the President for a gaming evening for his attendees was nothing out of the ordinary, adds Mattusch. "It was just like negotiating with a hotel about a banquet."

The Spread of Casinos

Arizona             Implemented since July 1991
Colorado            Legal and operative
Connecticut         Implemented since July 1991
Illinois            Legal and operative
Indiana             Authorized but not yet implemented
Iowa                Legal and operative
Louisiana           Authorized but not yet implemented
Michigan            Legal and operative
Minnesota           Legal and operative
Mississippi         Implemented since July 1991
Missouri            Authorized but not yet implemented
Montana             Legal and operative
Nebraska            Legal and operative
Nevada              Legal and operative
New Jersey          Legal and operative
New York            Implemented since July 1991
North Dakota        Legal and operative
Oregon              Legal and operative
South Dakota        Legal and operative
Washington          Implemented since July 1991
Wisconsin           Legal and operative
Puerto Rico         Legal and operative

Canada

Alberta             Legal and operative
British Columbia    Legal and operative
Manitoba            Legal and operative
Ontario             Authorized but not yet implemented
Quebec              Authorized but not yet implemented
Saskatchewan        Legal and operative
Yukon Territory     Legal and operative

Source: Gaming & Wagering Business, BMT Communications, Inc., New York City

More than just a place to play

One principle on which almost everyone concerned agrees is this: Gaming is only one piece in the destination puzzle. Selecting a city "has a lot to do with what else there is to do there," says Schultz. "We do have people who don't like to gamble, and we do book a small block of rooms in a non-gambling hotel and offer other types of entertainment [so as not to] limit people to staying in hotels and gambling."

Are the traditional gaming locations responding to this need? Las Vegas, for one, recently has been promoting itself as more of a comprehensive meetings and family vacation destination than as a center focused on gaming. Says Heffner, of Las Vegas, "We've had three generations of change. Three generations ago Nevada was the only state that offered traditional, full-casino gambling. In the next generation, we became the entertainment capital of the world."

With today's technology, Heffner says, "everyone feels comfortable with machines. Our casinos offer incredible interactive arcade areas for children. We're also going into amusement parks and water parks, as well as the traditional ride and entertainment facilities. We have golfing, tennis, swimming, and a favorable climate." And, he points out, Las Vegas will soon have more than 100,000 hotel rooms. It already has the nation's largest convention center that's all on one floor.

The final draw

When the chips are down, it's the destination itself that sells the meeting, not the gambling. As Chernov says, "The most important thing for a meeting planner is to know the participants, know the type of people they're bringing in, and, whether it's a gaming destination or not, setting a program that gets the participants together. Some groups wouldn't meet in a gaming destination. Gaming just offers another alternative activity to all the things that are around," he adds.

"I've watched this new industry ebb and flow already," says Nancy Milton, manager of media relations and visitor relations for the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission. "Associations can take advantage of the convention center, 5,000 hotel rooms, one of the most famous national monuments in the country, blues music, and the food in St. Louis," she says.

"Why would you go someplace just for gaming when you can go some-place for a lot of other things?"

Stephanie Faul is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer.