Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Treasure Island plans more convention space

1115treasureislandexterior

Steve Marcus

An exterior view of the Treasure Island Tuesday, November 15, 2011.

The house always has an edge, and the edge many Strip casinos have today is extensive convention space that helps ensure visitors come and stay on the property for days.

And Treasure Island Las Vegas plans to increase its edge with a $6.5 million 12,500- square-foot expansion of its convention space.

The resort already has 18,000 square feet of meeting space. The addition, set to open next year, will give the property more than 30,000 square feet. Industry experts agree that meeting space can really add to a hotel's’ bottom line.

“The balance between the number of hotel rooms and the convention space (is important),” said Anthony Lucas, professor of casino management at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration.” You’ve got this fixed population (rooms). When you have conventions in, it creates scarcity in your room supply.”

Lucas said the scarcity means you can charge more for your remaining rooms. He also said the convention business drives gaming revenue on the casino floor and helps with the casino’s food and beverage operations, “because a lot of times convention business is on a corporate credit card and is less price sensitive.”

Don Voss, vice president of hotel sales and marketing for Treasure Island, said his property isn’t one of the Strip’s major players when it comes to convention space, but the addition will definitely help.

“It opens up a lot of more opportunities,” Voss said. “Relatively speaking, Treasure Island has a minimal amount of space. When compared to meeting rooms and other spaces it’s one of of the smallest on the Strip.

“We turn down more than half of the requests we get because we don’t have space,” Voss said. “So this addition lets us capture business we had to turn down before.”

Voss said the new space will help with room revenue, but not significantly.

“Yes, it helps increase average daily rate but in this case it won’t move the needle for us a lot,” said Voss, who explained that he typically books groups that use 25-40 rooms a night.

The additional space includes the 8,000-square-foot Antilles Ballroom, the 1,300-square-foot Bahamas Room and the 1,300-square-foot Coral Room. The Antilles Ballroom offers four break-out rooms ranging from 1,060 to 1,961 square feet. Existing rooms include the 11,808 square-foot Treasure Island Ballroom, which includes a stage and six breakout rooms; the 3,120-square-foot Caribbean Room; and the 598 square-foot Mediterranean Room.

Voss explained that the addition is an incremental increase that’s really meant to offer more options to the convention business the Treasure Island already has.

“It’s nice, too, because it’s connected to current space,” he said. “It’s located on the casino level on ground floor next to the pool. One room has a panoramic view. And the addition is in a nice location and will open up a lot more options to book groups especially those that need breakout rooms.”

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