Posted on: Tuesday, January 8, 2002

Las Vegas opens bigger convention center

By Lisa Snedeker
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — Tourism officials hope a new year and more exhibit space will bring more conventioneers, who are needed to fill the city's more than 124,000 hotel rooms during slower weekday periods.

Despite a sharp decline in tourism and convention business immediately after Sept. 11, the Las Vegas Convention Center opened its $170 million, 1.3-million-square-foot extended facilities yesterday.

The completion of the expansion project coincided with the opening of the International Consumer Electronics Show, the world's largest trade show in its field, and one of the city's biggest conventions.

While the Consumer Electronics Show's attendance is down slightly from last year's record 126,000 participants, tourism officials said the estimated 110,000 expected to attend are in line with previous shows in 2000 and 1999, organizers said.

The 1.2 million square feet of exhibit space will make it the largest Consumer Electronics Show to date by that measure, said spokeswoman Lisa Fasold.

The Consumer Electronics Show, which represents more than 650 U.S. technology companies, brought Las Vegas an estimated $155.3 million in nongambling revenue last year, said Kevin Bagger, senior research for the convention authority.

Las Vegas is the host city for more of Tradeshow Week's Top 200 conventions — 33 of the largest trade shows in North America — than anywhere else in nation.

In comparison, Chicago and Orlando have 22 and 14 shows, respectively, according to the convention centers and the industry trade magazine.

In part because of the Las Vegas Convention Center's expansion, Consumer Electronics Show organizers have scheduled show dates through 2022, organizers said.

That's good news for a city that has seen as many as 15,000 layoffs on the Las Vegas Strip since Sept. 11.

In November, attendance was down for the annual technology show by as much as 40 percent and occupancy levels have continued to be off for midweek visits, statistics from the convention and visitors authority show.

For the first 10 months of 2001, overall midweek occupancy was off 4 percentage points to 84.1 percent at the city's hotels from 2000.

The convention and visitors authority reported 3.5 million conventioneers had visited Las Vegas through October, up from 3.2 million in 2000.

Those numbers were up despite a 37.4 percent downturn in attendance in September and a 6 percent decrease in October.

Convention bookings for 2002 are back up and keeping pace with record high levels, Brandvik said.