The Italian food industry holds two trade shows a year. The smaller Pizza & Pasta Northeast comes to Atlantic City in early October. The larger International Pizza Expo takes place in Las Vegas in March.

The Las Vegas version, some 34 years old, attracts 14,000 people who want to learn the latest in purveying pizza and other Italian culinary specialties. The Atlantic City edition draws about 20 percent of that number, but is within an easy drive of a third of the Italian restaurant market in the U.S. The A.C. show also provides an industry option to those who can’t make it out to Las Vegas.

“They can come for a day or two and get an idea what’s going on the industry and still network,” says Bill Oakley, show director for both conventions.

Time to Make the Dough

That the pizza industry puts its money into the nation’s twin gaming capitals speaks volumes about the importance of Las Vegas and Atlantic City to the convention community. It also speaks to the importance of the convention and meeting business to the overall market mix of each city.

Put another way, gaming resorts cannot live by the roll of the dice or the swirl of the slots alone.

“Meetings and conventions are an incredibly important part of our growth because of their economic impact on the destination,” says Jacqueline Peterson, chief communications officer for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Peterson identifies three categories of professional gatherings: trade shows, conventions and meetings.

“Trade shows are the massive industry shows that focus on exhibition booths. Conventions are large gatherings that may include a trade show floor but focus on meetings, education sessions and seminars and presentations by speakers or panels. Meetings are typically smaller corporate or industry gatherings with no trade show component.”

To Rummy Pandit, executive director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality & Tourism at Stockton University in New Jersey, all conventions are meetings, but not all meetings are conventions.

“In the context of a meeting facility or convention center, the use of the term ‘meeting’ versus ‘convention’ may suggest differences of scale—a single-day, single-session event compared to a multi-day, multi-session event.”

Any way you define it, Atlantic City and Las Vegas fit the pizza industry quite well. “With Atlantic City, there’s not much going on in the day,” says Oakley. “That’s similar to Las Vegas, where the action happens after the show closes for the day.”

In Vegas in particular, conventioneers can not only enjoy dining, shows, hotels and gambling but pro hockey. And an NFL team is around the corner for fall get-togethers.

Pizza & Pasta Northeast tried Orlando, Chicago and New York, then went without a regional show after the economic downturn in 2008. It came back to Atlantic City last year.

The proliferation of options in Atlantic City—minus pro sports—helps account for the growth in the city’s convention and meeting trade. “They’re changing the model to attract trade show business,” Oakley says. For example, the 2017 show brought in 300 booths and 150 exhibitors; this year, the convention expects to draw close to 400 booths and 200 exhibitors.

Rooms to Grow

Last year, the Atlantic City Convention Center hosted 99 events that generated 153,463 room nights and $214.9 million in spending. Individual hotels held another 146 meetings, generating 113,922 room nights and spending of $88.8 million.

The number of events rose 4 percent over 2016, while room nights jumped 3 percent and spending 6 percent. And every $1 invested in luxury tax revenue returned $48 to the economy. Annual stalwarts such as the New Jersey League of Municipalities, the Pool and Spa show and the New Jersey Education Association confab led the way.

More meeting space in the city along with redevelopment and investment and a variety of new venues, restaurants and attractions stoked the gains, says Jim Wood, president and CEO of Meet AC, the organization responsible for selling the city. Now, the new Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Ocean Resort will add even more meeting space and hotel rooms to the mix.

“The meeting and convention business is growing at a national level, and destinations across the country are looking to capitalize on the growth of these year-round, non-weather-dependent revenue streams,” Pandit says. “In recent years, several properties in Atlantic City have made investments in improving and expanding their meeting facilities. The increased availability has in turn been able to accommodate a higher volume of business.”

The marketing people at Meet AC have a plan in place to help its sales team with leads using a virtual-reality experience, monthly video podcasts and advertisements in top trade publications, Wood says. “Our sales team also brings in planners for different tours to showcase everything the destination has to offer.”

During the last four years, the city has doubled future booking space, converting 34 percent of meeting and convention sales leads. Future room nights booked by Meet AC expect to attract 883,993 people who will spend $349 million.

The rise in meetings has additional impacts, Pandit says: attracting visitors who may not have otherwise traveled to Atlantic City; guaranteed revenue streams for future bookings; and creating more year-round business.

Viva Las Vegas

Out west, Las Vegas has been the top trade show destination in North America for the past 24 years, Peterson says.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority hosts approximately 22,000 meetings, conventions and trade shows annually, with an attendance of 6.6 million, utilizing more than 11.5 million square feet of meeting space and choosing among nearly 150,000 hotel rooms.

Meetings and conventions support approximately 65,000 local jobs with a $9.8 billion economic impact. Las Vegas saw record convention attendance in 2017. The strong schedule during the year included the triennial ConExpo-Con/Agg construction trade show in March, and record-breaking attendance for shows such as the Consumer Electronics Show and IMEX America, the incentive travel, meetings and events exhibition at the Venetian and the Palazzo Las Vegas.

Leisure tourism is susceptible to a number of factors that may slow the pace of visitation, but the continuing growth in convention numbers shows how robust the business travel segment is for Las Vegas, says David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

“Group travel is important because people coming to conventions fill hotels during midweek and tend to spend more on their rooms, food and beverage and entertainment than leisure guests,” he says.

Peterson says Las Vegas offers some impressive stats as a selling point. For one, convention attendance increases 8 percent when shows are relocated to Las Vegas. “Research also shows that attendees spend more time in meetings and on the trade show floor when programs are held in Las Vegas, because they know this is a 24-hour town and they don’t have to rush off the floor to go to dinner or enjoy our world-class entertainment,” she says.

The Las Vegas Convention Center in 2017 hosted 50 trade shows and conventions with 1.4 million attendees.

The Franchise Times Corp. has held meetings in Las Vegas for more than 15 years, hosting a conference in spring for 400 and a larger one in the fall for 2,800.

“Attendees still like to go to Vegas, and it helps turnout,” says conference director Gayle Strawn, confirming Peterson’s research. Also, the meeting space, the restaurants and the ease of flying in and out make the city a perennial favorite.

Cross-Country Marketing

Along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the convention business remains primarily regional. “But we’re seeing more and more national attendance and national interest with the increase of air service,” says Anna Roy, media relations manager for Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast. “There is an incredible amount to do, see and experience here, from kayaking, boating, fishing and hiking to museums and championship golf courses.”

The Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center offers over 400,000 square feet of state-of-the-art meeting space and can comfortably house groups of up to 6,000 people.

While convention centers offer the largest space in gaming resorts, individual hotels host their share of meetings. “Meeting planners enjoy the added on-site benefits that casinos bring to the destination, such as dining, live entertainment and spas,” Roy says.

The Venetian and the Palazzo Las Vegas and Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City have their own conference centers. Like hotels, consider them one-stop shops that provide meeting-goers everything under a single roof: meeting space, hotel suites, restaurants, shopping and other amenities.

The Sands Expo and Congress Center at the Venetian and the Palazzo Las Vegas offer services, space and more than 7,000 suites, says Chandra Allison, senior vice president of sales for the properties.

“From the very beginning, the Venetian and the Palazzo Las Vegas attached to the Expo Center was conceived as a meetings-focused master plan. We were designed with the intention to appeal to the business customer. In the end, the networking opportunities are better in a facility where attendees are in one place. Also, logistically it’s much easier for planners and professionals.”

The expo center can host conventions from 10 people to 50,000 and also contribute rooms to CES and other larger trade shows, Allison says.

On the Waterfront

In 2015, Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City opened the Waterfront Conference Center, the largest hotel conference complex from Baltimore to Boston. The facility offers two 50,000-square-foot flexible ballrooms in addition to 25,000 square feet of existing space at Harrah’s. Since its opening, the center has become a corporate meetings destination.

“A customer can have a group of 5,000 attendees and eat, sleep and meet in one location,” says Kevin Ortzman, regional president of Atlantic City for Caesars Entertainment. “The financial results have exceeded all expectations. We’ve had several large Fortune 500 companies that have been full-facility customers and have booked repeat business.”

Ortzman views the conference center as a complement to the Atlantic City Convention Center. “The customers who are looking for meeting space at a hotel have different needs than those who need a large trade show convention center,” he says. “Our customers find it important to have first-class guest rooms in the same space as their meeting.”

As for extracurricular activities, Harrah’s offers meeting-goers the Pool After Dark, which can be used as a partial or full buy-out; the Red Door Spa; and the Viking Cooking School, hailed as a unique team-building activity.

Harrah’s is hooked into the rest of Caesars Entertainment properties, where a team of more than 130 sales people around the country sell to convention and meeting planners.

“The sales team offers our entire portfolio of hotels,” says Michael Massari, chief sales officer for Caesars Entertainment. “For example, when a sales manager is working with a customer who has conferences in Las Vegas, our sales people automatically offer Atlantic City for any upcoming East Coast meetings.”

Caesars Entertainment offers customers the benefit of the Diamond Card, offering their VIPs priority service at restaurants and the business center, for example. “We remain flexible, as a customer only works with one sales manager and signs only one contract, with one food and beverage minimum,” Massari says.

Sharing the Wealth

While Harrah’s hosts one of the larger meeting venues, it’s still only a quarter of the Convention Center’s 595,700 square feet. Still, the conference center and the convention center do compete with each other.

“All meetings and conventions contribute to the overall economic activity of the city regardless of which property hosts them,” Pandit says. “However, while the Convention Center might draw on neighboring food and beverage and lodging businesses to serve attendees, casino resort hotels already house those services, therefore capturing more of the visitor ‘spend’ related to the event.”

Individual hotels like the 2,800 rooms at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa and its sister Water Club serve meetings of all sizes, from small conferences to larger trade shows and conventions. Borgata continues to reinvest in the property to meet the demand, says Brian Brennan, the casino resort’s senior public relations manager. “Understanding the importance of the meetings, conferences and exhibitions market, Borgata invests heavily into both the property’s gaming and non-gaming elements. On an ongoing basis, guests will experience new and upgraded meetings and events spaces, restaurants, nightlife venues and more.”

The recent launch of Borgata’s Central Conference Center allows the hotel to accommodate more trade shows and business expos, he says.

The one constant—in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Mississippi and elsewhere—is that gaming is not the draw. Casinos “add a bit of incidental fun to a convention,” Allison says. “However, we find that most attendees are here for business first and foremost, and gaming is not the driver.”

Says Wood, “Planners focus on content and education. Gaming is just one built-in amenity, just one form of entertainment.”

Ortzman adds that conventioneers are more interested in the quality of the product and the service as well as the food and beverage offering.

Putting out the Welcome Mat

The rosy picture doesn’t gloss over thorny issues. Oakley says March is a great time of the year in Las Vegas, but hotel availability is strained. Occupancy the week of the pizza show is 98 percent citywide, and attendees booking at the last minute find rates go up.

“That’s a little problematic,” Oakley says. Still, the price points work in both Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Going forward, Atlantic City still has a selling job to do on meeting planners like Strawn, who says the St. Anthony, Minnesota-based organization never considered Atlantic City because it’s too gaming-centric.

Casino resort destinations can’t rest on their laurels. Harrah’s and Borgata are examples of properties that plowed money back into their properties to lure meeting planners.

“We continue to invest in the industry to maintain our position and our city’s economic future,” Peterson says. “Currently, approximately 3 million square feet of additional meetings and convention space is in development in Las Vegas, including the Phase Two expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center District.”

Says Oakley, “We would not have our expo anywhere else. And we expect the Pizza & Pasta Northeast to stay in Atlantic City.”