U.S. meetings and convention cities: Who gets bragging rights?
Skift Take
It's fierce competition for the lucrative convention market, and Las Vegas had better be on top of its game because business travelers sometimes long for something different as opposed to repeat visits to Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority plans to borrow and spend $2.5 billion to develop the Las Vegas Global Business District, an overhauled convention center facility that will include a World Trade Center and multimodal transportation hub.
The project will be the first major expansion for the 54-year-old, 3.2-million-square-foot Las Vegas Convention Center in more than a decade. LVCVA leaders say it is essential to keep the facility ahead of its competition.
Las Vegas consistently ranks as the country's top meetings destination. The city markets itself as a place where conventioneers can mix business with pleasure, broker deals during the day, then hit the town at night.
The city can accommodate large shows in multiple venues, including the Convention Center, Sands Expo and Convention Center and Mandalay Bay Convention Center, and with 150,000 hotel rooms, the city can handle gatherings of any size.
The proximity of McCarran International Airport to the city's meetings spaces also plays well with conventioneers, as does the airport's nonstop flight offerings and relatively inexpensive fares.
Last year, 4.9 million people attended 21,615 shows in Las Vegas.
But the competition is fierce. Convention hosts from coast to coast hope to grab market share from the valley.
