\nRichard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal <\/p>\n
\tMillennials have become the new target market for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.<\/p>\n
\tBilly Vassiliadis, who heads R&R Partners, the Convention and Visitors Authority\u2019s contracted marketing and advertising consultant, told board members Tuesday there would be renewed emphasis in attracting conventioneers, corporate meetings and international travelers as well as the generation born after about 1982 who tend to spend freely for quality entertainment.<\/p>\n
\tVassiliadis said the Millennials currently outspend Baby Boomers in their trips to Las Vegas because they don\u2019t have many of the expenses \u2014 mortgages and car payments, for example \u2014 that the city\u2019s traditional visitor market has.<\/p>\n
\tInternational travelers also spend more than their domestic contemporaries. While international arrivals represent 20 percent of the visitor volume to the city, they represent 30 percent of the revenue generated from tourists.<\/p>\n
\tThe agency also will work with meeting planners and top business executives to attract conventions and association meetings knowing that competition from other cities is increasing.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cEverybody wants to knock off Las Vegas,\u201d Vassilliadis said. \u201cAnd the competition is growing. Not only are we competing with Chicago, New York and Orlando, but today it\u2019s a global market.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tVassiliadis said when his team began researching marketing strategy it threw out past assumptions about the city\u2019s core markets to develop a roadmap to the future.<\/p>\n
\tVassiliadis said because research is showing that travel attitudes are rapidly changing it would be important to obtain responses from visitors to react quickly to visitor sentiments.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe will need to sit down with visitors and get their feedback,\u201d he said. \u201cIs there something else in Las Vegas that they\u2019d like to see?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAHEAD OF RIVALS<\/p>\n
\tThat type of customized response will help keep Las Vegas ahead of rivals and spur the city\u2019s resort community to provide the type of experiences that will attract the younger market.<\/p>\n
\tVassiliadis said that type of research convinced the LVCVA to modify its advertising strategy on the fly. Last year, the authority put its \u201cWhat happens here, stays here\u201d advertising campaign on hiatus while it promoted its new LasVegas.com booking website. R&R\u2019s research found that core visitors resented that that the ads were discontinued, saying the humorous ad series encouraged them to make a return visit to the city.<\/p>\n
\tAds were quickly returned to key markets and Vassiliadis said they would be part of the new marketing campaign.<\/p>\n
\tInternationally, Vassiliadis said Las Vegas would have a series of small promotions throughout the year in Great Britain instead of one large campaign to keep the city as a vacation option more frequently.<\/p>\n
\tThe campaign also will capitalize on special events and corporate sponsorships to target-market groups to make an extra trip to Las Vegas, even for events that aren\u2019t staged here.<\/p>\n
\tVassiliadis said the city has learned that visitors enjoy coming to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl even though the game is played elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\tCONTROVERSY AHEAD?<\/p>\n
\tThe agency will look to partnerships to bring people to the city during the NCAA \u201cMarch Madness\u201d basketball tournament, the Latin Grammy Awards, the Oscars, the Primetime Emmy Awards, the National Hockey League Awards, the Golden Globes and the National Basketball Association Finals.<\/p>\n
\tIt also will focus on leisure travel diversity to attract the Hispanic market and the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender community.<\/p>\n
\tThe R&R presentation sparked a potentially controversial matter for next month\u2019s board meeting.<\/p>\n
\tAuthority President and CEO Rossi Ralenkotter said the timing of the delivery of the marketing strategy makes it critical for the board to consider the renewal of R&R\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n
\tIn the past, the board opened the contract up for competitive bids or considered a contract extension. Ralenkotter said he wants R&R to make a contract renewal presentation at the board\u2019s November meeting instead of next spring. The contract expires at the end of June, but Ralenkotter doesn\u2019t want to lose continuity in the marketing program as it puts efforts in motion and begins work on a $2.3 billion convention center campus overhaul that will transform the Las Vegas Convention Center to the Las Vegas Global Business District.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal Millennials have become the new target market for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Billy Vassiliadis, who heads R&R Partners, the Convention and Visitors Authority\u2019s contracted marketing and advertising consultant, told board members…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}