GBGC founder and CEO Warwick Bartlett suggests that Las Vegas’ continuing growth as a conference and exhibition city is being supported by a strong US economy.
There seems to be no stopping Las Vegas and its role as a world-leading entertainment and convention centre. By 2020 1,969 new hotel bedrooms will be added, bringing total capacity to 152,201, according to a March report from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Las Vegas has more hotel rooms than any other city beating New York with 130,000 rooms and central London 103,067 rooms.
One of Las Vegas’ advantages as a conference and exhibition city is that it has a monorail transport system linking all the key point along the strip, so the hotels are in reasonable travel time from each other.
Delegates can stay at one resort and quickly transfer to the conference venue at another location. There are 15 major projects underway at the moment, ranging from hotels to a new stadium.
The new stadium will seat 65,000 people and be completed in time for the 2020 NFL season. The new Circa Resort & Casino will have 770 rooms in downtown Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention Centre is to be expanded at a cost of $935m and will add 1.4 million sq ft to its current 3.2 million. Google is building a data centre that will serve billions of digital users around the world at a cost of $600m.
Genting’s Resort’s World will be the centre piece of the new developments with a $4bn, 3,400 room hotel tower complex.
This optimism to build and invest is most probably founded on the US economy that is experiencing its lowest unemployment numbers for 50 years.
Moreover, what is remarkable is the transformation of Las Vegas from a purely gambling city to a conference centre with unrivalled capacity, numerous restaurants and great shows.
