DOING BUSINESS IN
LAS
VEGAS
The Ultimate Work/Play Destination
by Anja Tranovich
If you’re a business traveler heading
to Las Vegas, you won’t be the only one wandering
the strip in a suit, some eight million visitors come
here annually for business. Business travel generates
more revenue for the city than gaming, Jeremy Handel of
the Las Vegas visitor’s authority told me. The slot
machine capital is actually more of a convention town.
Not surprisingly, the Las Vegas Convention Center is
one of the largest in North America. It draws all manner
of conventions from the association of pizza makers
to international fashion shows. The Las Vegas convention
centers (the city has three along with numerous centers
within hotels) have hosted the introduction of the VCR,
DVD, and flat screen TV to the market, as well as the
annual adult film awards. Las Vegas held about 24,000
meetings and trade shows last year, and nearly a fifth
of the visitors to the city passed through its main
Convention Center.
In the city of perpetual one-upmanship,
hotels have fallen all over themselves to accommodate
the business-minded who come to Las Vegas for conferences
and trade shows. Across the street from the Convention
Center, the bold bronze exterior of Wynn, Steve
Wynn’s eponymous hotel, gleams against blue skyline.
When I visited, it was buzzing with a tech company’s
annual meeting. There are sleek computers in Wynn’s
meeting rooms and every sort of technical gadget and
amenity for working or distracting yourself from the
work you should be doing. Wynn and its sister property,
Encore, embrace the stunning desert vistas with
floor to ceiling windows in their chic rooms. Encore
is the latest addition to the strip, but not for long.
Looming, insect-like construction cranes
almost outnumber the palm trees dotting the Vegas cityscape.
The Vegas strip is going through incredible growth and
40,000 hotel rooms will be added in the next year. At
the hub of all this activity is the new City Center
by MGM Mirage. This city within a city will stretch
across 67 acres of prime Vegas strip real estate. The
center will include its own fire station, power plant,
and post office, as well as a 300,000-square-foot convention
hall. “It will create 12,000 new jobs when it opens,
which will be the largest singular job influx Vegas
has ever had,” says Heidi Baldwin of MGM Mirage.
 With
so many new places debuting, the older properties have
renovated to keep up with all the bright, shiny new
buildings on the block. The rooms (and the volcano)
at the original mega-resort The Mirage, recently
went through a $110 million overhaul. When The Mirage
opened in 1989, it signaled the end of the heyday of
mob-run casinos downtown and brought on the bright flashing
lights of the strip, with its signature luminous gold
windows tinted with actual gold. It has always been
a harbinger of strip trends, the latest of which is
to tone down gimmicky themes and add new amenities and
sophisticated interiors. The Mirage’s renovated
rooms keep the business traveler in mind with a glass
desk, two phones with dual lines, and high-speed Internet
access. The rooms were made contemporary with a neutral
color palette accented with vibrant pops of color, cool
metals, and warm woods.
“There has been a general shift
in the resorts, they are less focused on themes and
instead are trying to become brands,” Michael Bertetto,
who works with the Las Vegas city tourism board, explained
to me over drinks at Voodoo Lounge in the Rio
as we surveyed the strip from our 50-story-high panoramic
perch. He pointed out the Paris hotel and casino
and noted they’ve been playing down the Eiffel
Tower and instead promoting an “everything is sexier
in Paris” motto. The back of the bathroom stall
doors inside the Paris resort teach you how to say phrases
in French like, “Can I feel your baguette?”
and advertisements promote their “sensual, stylish
accommodations.”
Meanwhile, Mandalay Bay has redone
its rooms as well with less tiki torches and more refined
furniture and additions like TVs in the shower room
and desks with fax machines. Vegas of late has been
doing away with some of its garish aspects but keeping
intact its classic kitsch. Mandalay Bay still has elements
of its theme with pool-side tropical cabanas and lightly
campy island-themed décor. At 20 years old, the
strip has left its awkward adolescence and is heading
toward more sophisticated pursuits like courting business
clients and recruiting world-class chefs.
Las Vegas has also become a foodie haven.
Nearly every chef with name recognition has an outlet
on the strip. Joel Robuchon, for example, a renowned
French chef, has several restaurants on the strip. Robuchon’s
smaller eatery in the MGM Grand, L’Atelier de
Joel Robuchon, is a great restaurant for a business
dinner or solo dining. The casual aesthetic of black
marble and lipstick red accents centers around an open
kitchen where the talented chefs working in front of
the diners helped win the restaurant a Michelin star.
The creamy pumpkin soup with confit chestnuts is rich
and sweet, and the seabass fillet on a baby leek salad
with fresh tomato and lemon has a perfect texture, crispy
on the outside but underneath the crust the soft white
fish melts in your mouth.
The sommelier, Harley Carbery, is accessible
and friendly. Have him pick out a wine or champagne
pairing and save room for the awesome high/low brow
desserts, like the piña colada layered dessert
of Victoria pineapple, yogurt ice cream, and Malibu
gelée sprinkled with the playground candy delight
of the eighties: Pop Rocks.
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