Las Vegas tops for trade shows; list author closes

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, May 28, 2010 | 3 a.m.

Las Vegas maintained its grip as the top destination on the Tradeshow Week 200, a list of the leading conventions and trade shows staged in North America in 2009.

But the bad news for Las Vegas is that the publication has disappeared, a victim of the recession.

Weeks after Tradeshow Week came out with its list showing Las Vegas playing host to 45 of the top 200 shows last year, Reed Business Information, the largest business-to-business publisher in the United States, announced it was pulling the plug on the publication.

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority officials looked forward to seeing the Tradeshow Week 200 every year because Las Vegas was always at the top of the rankings. Shortly after the rankings were announced, the authority followed with a news release noting that Las Vegas has held the top spot for the past 16 years.

In 2009, Las Vegas had six of the top 10 shows: the International Consumer Electronics Show, World of Concrete, the International Builders Show, ReCon, the National Association of Broadcasters and the World Shoes and Accessories Show.

Las Vegas has the advantage of having three of the nation’s largest convention centers: the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Sands Expo & Convention Center and the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, all within a few miles of each other. The advantage is that Las Vegas can accommodate the megashows that need multiple venues (and hotel rooms) to house all the conventiongoers.

The multiple large convention centers also can handle co-located shows such as the Specialty Equipment Market Association car show, which actually is three shows in one with each organization taking over a convention center. The large amount of space enables Las Vegas to host events such as the triennial ConExpo-Con/Agg construction equipment trade show, which makes its next Las Vegas appearance in March.

Tradeshow Week ranked shows by the total square footage acquired by exhibitors, an industry standard, but most destinations pay closer attention to the number of conventiongoers.

“Billions of dollars have been invested in the facilities, amenities and service to make Las Vegas the premier convention destination and that collaborative effort continues to pay dividends,” Rossi Ralenkotter, LVCVA president and CEO, said in a statement issued after the Tradeshow Week 200 rankings were released.

Although Las Vegas beat convention rivals Chicago and Orlando, Fla., the number of conventions hosted and attendance at those shows were down in the first quarter of this year compared with the first three months of last year.

The convention authority reported the number of meetings, conventions and trade shows down 6.5 percent to 4,585 for the first three months of 2010 with attendance down 8.3 percent to 1.3 million people in that time frame.

Although Tradeshow Week has gone the way of many print publications, another company has announced it plans to distribute the same information online.

Tarsus Online Media, a division of Peterborough, N.H.-based Tarsus Group, plans to launch a data site with information crucial to the trade-show industry.

Tarsus said it not only would it publish industry information incorporating 10 years of data on North American trade shows online, but that it would update data regularly.

“Since the closing of Tradeshow Week was announced, our phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” Tarsus Online Media CEO R.D. Whitney said in a news release. “Industry leaders have been calling on us to develop a replacement, and we feel that the TSNN (Trade Show News Network) DataSite is the perfect response to this continuing industry demand.”

Tradeshow Week is one of more than 20 Reed publications that have shut down. Of interest to the Las Vegas hospitality industry is the closure of its Restaurants & Institutions, Foodservice Equipment & Supplies and HOTELS publications.

HOTELS, which Reed has touted as “the premier information source for the global hotel industry,” announced that it has joined business media publisher Marketing & Technology Group and will relaunch its magazine and website within 30 days.

McCarran stats

McCarran International Airport passenger counts showed their second worst percentage decline of 2010 with traffic off 5 percent to 3.4 million in April compared with a year earlier.

US Airways’ capacity cutback is again responsible for the bulk of the decline with its passenger count down 57.7 percent to 197,005 for the month. It is the No. 4 airline at McCarran. Market leader Southwest Airlines was off 2.1 percent to 1.3 million passengers, No. 3 United was down 1.6 percent to 230,760 and No. 5 American had a 0.5 percent increase to 195,713.

The difference-maker for the month was Delta Air Lines, courtesy of its merger with Northwest Airlines. The merged carrier had a 48.4 percent increase to 300,328 compared with unmerged Delta a year ago.

Summer travel

The summer travel season officially kicks off this Memorial Day weekend and Internet travel company Travelzoo Inc., which produces a Top 20 list of the week’s best travel and lodging deals, says Las Vegas ranks high because of the value proposition it offers.

Although a majority of those surveyed think a summer vacation isn’t something they’ll be able to afford this year, 60 percent say they’ll go despite the cost and the obstacle of finding time to get away.

That leads Travelzoo to conclude that bargain destinations would fare well this summer.

Domestically, tourism rival Orlando and Colorado appear to be Las Vegas’ biggest competition for the tourist dollar this summer. Other destinations in the top five are the Bahamas and Australia-New Zealand, primarily because the cost of airfare has been slashed.

Here’s what Travelzoo had to say about Las Vegas: “It’s no surprise Sin City made the top five summer savings list. In general, May through August is a slower travel season for Las Vegas, and Travelzoo deal experts predict more aggressive deals this summer as Sin City continues to operate in recovery mode. Travelers can find hotel deals for $50 per night that include free extras such as spa discounts, casino credits and free VIP nightclub admission. Some of the hottest shows on the Strip are slashing prices, too. So while it may be 90-plus degrees outside, the cool casino temperatures and thriving pool scene make it easy to combat the summer heat.”

Memo to Travelzoo: That should be 100-plus degrees.

The company’s travel survey found that 72 percent of travelers find the cost the most difficult aspect of summer vacation planning while 24 percent say taking time off is the most challenging thing. Some negatives for Las Vegas: 44 percent of Americans most enjoy relaxing and swimming at a beach while on vacation and 49 percent enjoy exploring nature, hiking and outdoor activities.

Orlando is getting kudos from Travelzoo for offering discounts for families to visit the city’s theme parks, which include Universal Studios and its new Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which opens in June and has gotten considerable buzz.

Real airfare costs

Seasoned travelers know that part of the research in finding the lowest plane ticket price is unraveling the hidden fees airlines charge.

GoodHousekeeping.com recently listed the cost of trip extras for the eight largest U.S. airlines as of April. The story by Amy Roberts and Lauren Caruso offered total extra charges for checking one suitcase, getting one meal and one entertainment purchase.

Some airlines don’t sell food or entertainment, so in some cases the article explains that passengers have to bring their own.

From worst to first, the airlines and their typical round-trip extras:

• Delta Air Lines, $82, which includes $25 for the first checked bag, a meal and a movie in each direction.

• American Airlines, $70, which includes $25 for the first checked bag and a meal in each direction. American offers free audio, video and movies and charges $2 for headsets, but you can bring your own.

• United Airlines, $68, which includes $25 for the first checked bag and a meal each direction. XM Radio and programmed video is free and headsets are free.

• US Airways, $64, which includes $25 for the first checked bag and a meal in each direction. You have to bring your own entertainment.

• Continental Airlines, $62, which includes $25 for the first checked bag and $6 for DirecTV. Meals and snacks are free.

• AirTran Airways, $40, which includes $15 for the first checked bag and a $5 standard seat assignment each way. No meals are offered, but cookies and pretzels are free.

• JetBlue, $12, which includes a movie each way. The first checked bag is free. There are no meals, but its snacks are free.

• Southwest, $0. Southwest charges nothing for the first checked bag (or the second) and has no meals or entertainment options. The writers didn’t charge themselves for Southwest’s EarlyBird service, which puts passengers at the front of the line for seat assignments at a cost of $10 each direction.

The comparisons will likely change in the months ahead as airlines are constantly tinkering with their ancillary fees. Southwest, for example, will soon offer in-flight Wi-Fi service for passengers that want to have online access. And if United and Continental merge, they’ll adjust fees.

CES attendance audit

January’s International Consumer Electronics Show turned out to be better attended than everybody thought.

An independent audit performed by Veris Consulting LLC determined that 126,641 people attended CES this year, a 12 percent increase from 2009.

CES annually kicks off the new year in Las Vegas with a bang with the Arlington, Va.-based Consumer Electronics Association presenting North America’s largest annual trade show.

This year’s show included exhibitions by 2,500 global companies, including a record 330 first-time exhibitors and 24,364 international attendees from 136 countries. International attendance was up 8 percent over last year and the most-represented countries other than the United States were Canada, South Korea, China, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, France, Brazil and Germany.

Dam tour

Papillon Airways, a helicopter division of Scenic Airlines, the world’s largest air-tour company, has begun a new “flightseeing” tour of Hoover Dam.

The 15- to 20-minute flights leave from Boulder City and Las Vegas and feature views of two engineering marvels — the 726-foot Hoover Dam and the nearly completed O’Callaghan-Tillman Memorial Bridge, which will carry U.S. 93 traffic about 900 feet above the Colorado River and bypass the dam when it opens in the fall.

Tours are being operated on Papillon’s six-passenger EC-130 EcoStar helicopters. The Hoover Dam tour costs $99 from Boulder City and $119 from Las Vegas.

Scenic’s tour companies fly about 3,500 passengers a day during the peak tourism season.

Arizona boycott costs

The New York Times reported that Arizona officials estimate that threatened or carried-out boycotts over the state’s new immigration law would cost the Phoenix area $90 million in convention and hotel revenue over five years.

That figure doesn’t include incidental spending in restaurants and shops and was calculated after four conventions bailed out of gatherings that had been planned this year and several others said they were considering similar action.

The law, which expands the power of local police to check the immigration status of people they suspect are in the country illegally, was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer in April and takes effect in July.

Several civil rights groups have encouraged people to boycott Arizona to pressure the state’s political leaders to reverse the action, but tourism leaders are asking the public to keep politics out of it and say boycotts affect industry employees who have nothing to do with the immigration debate.

“I don’t think there ever would be a good time not to have $90 million,” said Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who opposes both the law and the boycotts and is seeing his city’s economy struggle like Las Vegas’ during the recession.

Representatives of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority have said they don’t plan to aggressively pursue contracts with organizations that cancel events in Arizona, but would book the business if those organizations come to them.