Harrah’s Sticks To Its Formula for Successful Meetings January 29, 2010
By William Ng
In a challenging business environment for hospitality suppliers, Las Vegas Meetings by Harrah’s is not about to let go the throttle of what has been a proven game plan of helping planners facilitate value-added meetings and incentives as easily as possible through its one-stop-shop, multi-venue concept.
Using a football metaphor for trick strategies, “Now’s not the time for flea-flickers,” says Mike Massari, Harrah’s Entertainment’s vice president of meetings sales and operations for Las Vegas, who heads the sales force in charge of meetings and incentives at Harrah’s seven Las Vegas properties. “We’re doubling down on the things we do best,” he explains, in an exclusive sit-down interview with Incentive in Las Vegas.
Even though there is guarded optimism by some in the incentive and hospitality industries that business recovery might solidify later this year, Massari says Harrah’s is nonetheless prepared for the worst of conditions. “If 2010 is going to be as hard as 2009, it will not surprise us as an organization,” he says. “Optimism lies in being ready.”
He says his team is working extra hard to secure meetings and incentives business at the Paris, Caesars Palace, Bally’s, Flamingo, Harrah’s, Imperial Palace, Rio, and, soon, Planet Hollywood resorts. That includes just-announced innovations such as lower-priced value menu packages at Flamingo, Harrah’s, and Imperial Palace and a 200-language translation service that makes it easier for Harrah’s resort employees to communicate with international visitors.
The one-price menu packages were created in response to budget pressures among clients and feature reduced per-person minimums and no surcharges. They include a shorter two-course lunch, rather than three courses, and an all-day, non-alcoholic beverage option. Buffets will be put together by various Flamingo, Harrah’s, and Imperial Palace restaurants and remain gourmet fare but with value pricing.
The InterpreTalk service works by phone, with 24/7 interpreters. It uses dual-handset phones so that Harrah’s staff and attendees don’t have to pass one handset back and forth while service is being tended.
Also, longtime executive Jennifer Martini Abdinoor is now in charge of working with third-party planning companies such as ConferenceDirect, Experient, and Maritz, in the newly created position of director of sales – strategic partnerships. She is the single point of contact for such parties, bringing the same level of service to them as Las Vegas Meetings by Harrah’s has done for its direct clients. “Our job is to help planners execute,” says Massari. “It’s a very simple premise at the end of the day.”
Since 2005, the organization has been offering meeting planners the use of any combination of Harrah’s resort facilities under one contract, master bill, and food and beverage minimum—as well as a single sales contact and one convention services manager—in order to simplify and expedite the planning process. Planners can mix and match according to budget, blocking out guest rooms at Paris and reserving meeting space at Caesars, for instance. More recently, it has allowed restaurant and nightlife-venue charges in its resorts to be included in a group contract’s food and beverage minimum. That flexibility precluded the industry-wide shift by suppliers to work more closely with planners to consummate meetings as the recessionary market swung to the buyer’s favor.
Massari believes the meetings market has irreconcilably changed, perhaps to a permanent new frugality, due to the heavy toll of the recession and the negative perception of corporate events that entailed. Says Massari: “There will be a new normal, but what will it be? We’ll need to figure this out, but we have a nice mix of properties and many price points. We have something for planners regardless of budget and taste, from the Imperial Palace on up.”
Harrah’s Entertainment recently took over the management of the 2,500-room Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, which is opening the new 1,200-accommodation Planet Hollywood Towers this month. The combined, high-end properties have 125,000 square feet of meeting space, and Harrah’s is working on completing its purchase of Planet Hollywood within the next two months. Massari expects to add the properties to the Las Vegas Meetings by Harrah’s portfolio.
“Planet Hollywood will be a great addition that will fit right in with Caesars Palace” on the upper end of the Harrah’s product scale, he notes. “It’s a little hipper and edgier, with good meeting space. We are raising the service there. We’ll keep doing what’s been successful for us.”
Incentive/IMRA Sales Excellence Awards Winners Announced Incentive magazine announced the winners of its 15th annual Sales Excellence Awards earlier this week, celebrating the best and most successful independent representative firms in the industry.
U.S. Travel Association Forms Meetings, Incentives, Trade Show Council The U.S. Travel Association has created a new board member council that will build a proactive meetings and incentives research, communications, government relations and promotion agenda, it announced yesterday.
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