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Hey, bartender” has become a loaded phrase, on a worldwide scale.

For most, it still denotes an employee scrambling to fill drink requests over the din of a noisy establishment. But today, it also means a sophisticated robot pouring precise, pre-programmed beverages. The phrase may also describe a hybrid: the human bartender aided by a mechanized device. Welcome to another world.

Bars now use apps, tablets, downloads, credit-card swipers and other interactive components, not merely at taverns but inside an increasing number of gaming facilities. And they’re fast.

The high-energy bar business meets the casino world at the crossroads of bottom line and bottoms up. As casinos break the player-tracking world down to small details, they join an industry with accounting holes bigger than the Grand Canyon.

The bar business by definition has long been vulnerable to waste. It faces dilemmas like an estimated 20 percent cost for not being fully stocked, and the loss of thousands of dollars for spillage, over-pours and giveaways. Cash can also be loosely transported, bundled with food revenue and not always reconciled with daily sales totals.

There’s also pressure. Drinks are poured hurriedly, often to crowds who feel the need to shout for a bartender’s attention. Try recalling multiple ingredients for hundreds of drinks at the snap of one’s fingers amid loud music, fast-paced orders and the pulse of excitement.

The perception that a bar makes money faster than it can be counted is only true if waste is eliminated. Casinos and their clubs embrace three new success terms: automate, calculate, celebrate.

The Employee View

As with most technological breakthroughs, bartenders view mechanical aids with ambivalence.

On the positive side, they have a partner able to produce more drinks. This increases tip opportunities from patrons who usually give something automatically.

Second, the devices reduce wait time and the chance that impatient customers will leave. There’s a mythical lore to automated bartending; George Thorogood, who proclaimed the need for “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer” in a well-known song, might get them all now in 12 seconds.

On the flip side, automation monitors inventory. Every drink is measured, accounted for. There’s no option to make stronger drinks using more liquor to encourage tips. An unspoken status tier similar to a first-class airline passenger or frequent customer disappears. The phrase “on the house” vanishes. And the celebratory air of a drinking establishment faces bean-counting parameters like accuracy, accountability, speed and consistency.

Like most change-facing employees, a middle ground may be found. A creative bartender can gain conversational value in the automated device. He or she may even obtain management permission to dispense some free pours—extending the human arm, not the automated one, of player rewards.

There’s a negative side to the automation, however. In a recently threatened Las Vegas strike of culinary workers, the issue of bar automation became a rallying cry of workers fearful of losing their jobs. While the issue wasn’t directly addressed in the contract that averted the strike, it remains something that both union officials and casino executives will monitor.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Come and see the show. Or be in the show.

Makr Shakr 3.0 provides a drink, not a shrink. The robotic device won’t have a human bartender’s conversational skills, but it will make a good cocktail. Novelty, not speed, is its stock in trade. Makr Shakr is already deployed in Las Vegas and Biloxi, with sales efforts aimed at wider distribution.

The device reproduces the actions of a bartender from the shaking of a martini to the muddling of a mojito. The robots don’t make mistakes, and they can mix doses to millimeter precision. Sixty spirits can be stored in bottles alongside syrups, sodas, juices, lemons and limes.

Patrons can employ this unusual bartender by downloading the app and launching the drink order on a phone from one of the bar’s tablet stations. Date of birth and drink selections are established and sent to the system.

What follows is the show. The robot washes off the shaker, dries it and places an empty cup on the counter. Ice is poured and the spirits, drawn from ceiling-mounted bottles with custom valves to ensure precise dispensing, are delivered. A garnish, like a lemon, can be added. The robotic arm with the water-tight lid then hits the visual hot spot, shaking and stirring the drink before pouring it. The shake and the stir prompt patron reactions, and should be accompanied by music.

This entertainment caught the eye of Las Vegas entrepreneur Rino Armeni, who discovered Makr Shakr on the internet and contacted the company in order to distribute what’s called the world’s first robotic bar.

“To me, the magic is in the sheer entertainment and attraction produced by the product,” Armeni says. “It’s not necessarily to replace bartenders. The whole area where the robot bar is situated is about 600 square feet. It is very easy to deploy because it comes in crates and is installed in about three days.”

Armeni says it will pour 653 drinks on a given night. Where is its appeal?

“When the customers come inside and sit in front of a tablet, the tablet has a menu for the choice of cocktails or also the ability to create their own cocktail,” he says. “The tablet will communicate with the robot as soon as the credit card is swiped. People seem to have a lot of fun with this, as there’s a lot of curiosity on how the robots respond to the request. It eliminates spoilage and over-spilling.”

The automated bar at the Miracle Mile stores at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas is known as the “Tipsy Robot” bar. At the Hard Rock Casino Hotel in Biloxi, it’s called the “Robo Bar.”

Makr Shakr mixes automation, entertainment, flair and imagination. But it doesn’t come with ears to interpret one’s problems.

“I found this product to be extremely exciting for people who are always looking for an innovative way of entertaining themselves,” Armeni says.

“Obviously, the fact that they’re robots makes them able to produce perfect drinks every single time. They’re appreciative if you leave them a gratuity,” he laughs. “But all in all, it’s the technology that people appreciate, and that’s why they come to us, because we offer them something very unique.”

This is another score for Armeni, whose journey in Las Vegas began following a successful career with Marriott and the Walt Disney Corp., when he was named vice president of food and beverage for Caesars Palace. In 1994, he became executive director of marketing for Southern Wine & Spirits, the leading liquor distributor in Nevada, and later held various F&B positions with MGM Resorts.

As the head of Armeni Enterprises, he remains active in several food-and-beverage-related developments. In this project, he can give the public a fair shake.

The Evo Shuffle

Las Vegas-based Bar Evolution, with inspirational roots in Germany, has been true to its name.

Its bartender-support device, Evo (short for “evolution”), is used on a grand scale at nightclubs, sports stadiums, festivals and cruise ships. Evo is installed in Europe and served more than 2.7 million concert and festival attendees in the past year, according to Bar Evolution partner Bernd Witzany. The company wants to EVOlve further into the gaming world, with speed as its calling card.

“Evo mixes any cocktail of up to 40 ingredients in just three seconds, and one-liter pitchers in just over an amazing four seconds,” Witzany says. “A recently installed device dispensed nearly 90,000 cocktails flawlessly over a three-month period without failure or interruption, a testament to the device’s high quality. Evo can connect to any ingredient source.”

Witzany say Evo helps operators serve patrons exotic and popular cocktails more efficiently. It figures to turn the slash of reduced labor costs into the cash of a casino-owner windfall.

“Driven by new, patented Hydromix technology and paired with emerging management and control software, this innovative cocktail machine mixes perfect drinks with minimal operator effort,” he says. “It will become an establishment’s most efficient front-line asset by increasing sales volume, eliminating waste and greatly reducing labor costs.”

That should not threaten bartenders, he insists. Evo is a tool that supports them.

“A recent Evo case study validates the reported increase of 50 percent in server tips after the product was installed, due to the dramatically decreased wait times for drinks,” he says. “Customers have been waiting for this, and bartenders stand to benefit a lot as they can now focus more on those unique customer requests.

“We call it ‘cocktail automation with a human touch,’” he says. “This is not something that will replace a bartender’s job—it will help that person.”

Witzany cites another company report drawn from the Seven Feathers Casino in Oregon. Drinks were served to gaming floor guests in less than half the time, from 20 minutes down to less than nine, he says. The average drink tab was up 38 percent, servers could enter and pour their own drinks and the bar profit increased a whopping 148 percent in 10 months. This report says server tips rose nearly 44 percent; loss spillage and theft dropped by 75 percent; and material costs went down because Evo allows the purchase and use of larger containers.

The technology may also upgrade the atmosphere. Witzany says Evo’s aesthetic design and unique features add a dramatic flair to the environment. He touts a fascinating LED lighting feature giving Evo the ability to enhance mood and elegance. The integral processor-controlled LED lighting can be color-customized with an infinite number of lighting programs. The illumination also shows customers where to get a cocktail.

Evo was developed and patented in 2002 by an owner and operator of a nightclub in Munich, Germany, Witzany says. It is in its fourth iteration. It stands out in any club or bar, he says, and a design patent has been awarded for it. The company’s first version for the American market was approved almost two years ago, he says.

“It has been successfully installed in the United States, which has provided a solid and successful case study,” he says. “We anticipated certification for the next version of Evo by middle of June that would include some patented new features and refinements.

“We’ve designed our own self-contained and customized shipping-container solutions that can be deployed at any festivals throughout the world and be made operational within an hour,” he adds. “These highly refined units include complete, functional service bars complete with fold-out service counters, water, power, pumping systems and even eye-catching signage.”

Straight Up

Sometimes, the robot is… you.

Smartender, from the Smart Bar company of Henderson, Nevada, is a self-contained portable automated device that can pour hundreds of cocktail choices, from martinis and specialty drinks to juices and soft drinks at the touch of a button. Any authorized individual can use it on behalf of a company.

A dispense head ensures the accuracy of the pour within 1/20th of an ounce, officials say. The liquor drawer holds room for 16 bottles and 12 mixers with easy access to replace empty ones.

A bartender starts the process by tapping the device and inserting an unlock code. Player cards and room keys can also be swiped. A selection menu includes soft drinks, shots, martinis, tropical drinks, recently poured, user favorites, specialties and liquor/mixer to build one’s own drink.

Ice is taken from a dispenser, the glass put under the head, and voila! A drink in seconds, perfectly poured, recorded on a database and placed in a spreadsheet-type list of drink type, time of day and who used it.

Smartender has a feature telling the operator when a bottle is empty. It also connects to the mixer bay. And like an ideal employee, it can relocate. In this case, from room to room.

Used in stadiums, theaters, hotels and casinos, Smartender is among the family of products trumpeting large savings. Seemingly minor elements of the bartender-under-pressure scenario become costly. Smartender officials estimate a staggering loss for a simple overpour. Take the average price of a drink at $5. Multiply that by 15 cases of liquor. In one year, that can amount to more than $175,000 in losses—that’s for one-eighth of an ounce. Imagine a slightly more substantial overpour, not to mention giveaways. Double the loss for drinks costing $10.

There’s overpour, spillage and theft. Bar owners have long been wary of these problems, employing everything from mystery shoppers to security cameras to curb their impact. Now comes something just as useful to them, and, to some bartenders: another sales associate.

Throughout the industry, automated bar service is gaining momentum. The technology of tomorrow greets the patrons who wanted the drink yesterday, and it’s working. Pick the stylish presentation of a robot or the savvy engineering of a portable drink factory.

Either way, “Hey, bartender” now means a lot more.

Let’s start with a quiz. The term “ergonomics” refers to:

1. a. A people-friendly science that makes tools, furnishings, vehicles and the like more user-friendly.
3. b. A sneaky form of “human engineering” that boosts productivity by keeping laborers longer on the treadmill, grindstone or latter-day equivalent.

Ed Abadie, head designer and “chair guru” for Reno, Nevada-based seating manufacturer Gary Platt Manufacturing, says both definitions are true—up to a point.

“It used to be when you sat in a chair, all it had to do was keep you off the ground,” says Abadie, who sold commercial seating and case goods for 15 years before joining Gary Platt. “Then they realized that in order for you to stay at your desk rather than walking to the water cooler, the chair had to be more comfortable.”

And so the comfy chairs once reserved for the penthouse trickled down to the typing pool, and theoretically made all those worker bees work harder (or at least longer).

This simple equation is as important in the casino as in the cubicle. By helping to keep players at the slots or tables, ergonomically designed chairs show that top-line seating is crucial to bottom-line revenue.

Elements of Style

Subject to use 24/7/365, and accommodating customers of all sizes, weights, girths and fidget levels, casino chairs arguably must be more durable than other commercial seating. They must be adjustable and responsive, yet stable and supportive. Of course they should be comfortable—not just for a couple of minutes, but for the couple of hours it may take a gambler to dispose of his disposable income.

“When you sit in it, does it really ‘follow’ you and support you at your task?” asks Abadie. “Are your arms at the right level? Is your lumbar at the right spot when you lean forward?” If not, your body will signal that it’s time to move on.

The chair must look as great as it feels, and in the casino world that usually means a variation of the mid-century modern style that’s been ubiquitous for years. That design aesthetic, interestingly—the angular, Eames-inspired look or stripped-down Bauhaus style—often doesn’t look very comfortable at first glance.

“When people sit in an aesthetically pleasing chair,” as Abadie notes, “the last thing that they expect is comfort.”

That’s when you’d better surprise them.

Sizing up the Market

Casino chairs are mass-produced—in batches, based on client specs—but one size doesn’t fit all, says Jim Keranen, vice president of sales and marketing for Patir Casino Seating.

The company, which originated in Europe and opened its U.S. headquarters in 2016, is unusual in that it does everything from design to manufacture internally, says CEO Dennys Patir. “We work closely with interior designers and build up the chair from the ground. All our products are manufactured in-house, which allows us to completely custom-make chairs, according to your design specifications, working with all kinds of material—aluminum, steel, wood, etc.”

In appreciation of a broader clientele—no pun intended—the firm recently debuted a new line of chairs for the American market at the Indian Gaming Tradeshow and Convention in Las Vegas.

It’s a timely idea. Americans tend to be a bit more zaftig than their European and Asian counterparts. They require a roomier sit. For the new line, Patir “spent a significant amount of time testing and refining, working closely with casinos to really fine-tune the design to American player preferences,” says Keranen.

Those preferences change from sea to shining sea. “For instance, the East Coast in the United States is a little different from the West Coast,” says Keranen. “They prefer wider chairs, especially down in Florida, where the retirees are.” Traditionally, middle-aged women—the Bingo Marys so beloved of casino operators—prefer a seat made of springier foams, covered with softer fabrics.

StylGame, with offices in Italy and Las Vegas, produces chairs for casinos in 70 countries. It bases its seating dimensions on “the average values of weight and height of the people where they will be used,” says CEO Luigi Iulita. “This approach allows us to obtain outstanding results in terms of playing comfort, which directly and positively affects the revenue of the rooms.”

There are differentials beyond size. In Europe, Keranen notes, functionality is more important to operators, while in the U.S., comfort is No. 1. “Think of European beer halls. People are getting up and down more frequently, so it’s less about how much time they are in the chair. Now think of U.S. gamblers, who will sometimes be at the same slot machine for hours.”

As the most utilized furniture in a casino, chairs undergo a version of laboratory “crash testing” to ensure durability, strength and safety. Patir chairs, for example, are subject to up to 200,000 simulated hand strikes to assess how the fabrics, vinyls, leather and other coverings stand up under constant use, says Keranen. By contrast, other commercial chairs may endure less than half that, and household chairs get off easy (as few as 10,000 strikes).

StylGame’s Iulita says his company measures “resistance to stress levels that go far beyond the ones required by the standard certifications, frequently overcoming them by more than 200 percent.”

The Look of Luck

Operators have traditionally preferred simpler fabrics for chair seats and backrests, and something snazzier for chair backs (including company branding), because it’s more visible across the gaming floor. Even in the simplest, most austere chairs, fine details such as contrasting double-stitching can add a look of richness and luster.

Speaking of shifting consumer likes, some fabrics are actually considered cooler than others. Mesh backs, for instance, are more appealing to that coveted (but as yet, coyly elusive) customer, the millennial.

Mesh is desirable for several reasons, says Abadie. “It allows a lot of give in your back; you have a lumbar that’s adjustable, so you can find your most comfortable position. It also allows a lot of air circulation, for a comfortable temperature for your guests.

“I understand that the primary casino customer is a 58-year-old gal who enjoys the solitude of slot playing,” he says. “But we’re creating a chair that’s more current, and casinos are starting to catch on.”

Mesh-backed chairs are also a snap to replace in case of cigarette burns, wine spills or the other defamations that can happen in a casino; often a damaged back can be screwed off and a new one installed without a chair ever leaving the floor.

Iconic designer Charles Eames, creator with wife Ray Eames of those famous minimalist chairs of the 1950s, once said the role of a furniture craftsman is that of “a very good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.”

The same is true for casino operators who want their guests—the players—to spend more time and money on property.

“That’s the secret,” says Keranan. “It’s what will make my customer happier.”

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.”

Casino operators have long known their best customers. Casino industry hoteliers, not so much.

Marketing professionals in the slot department and, to a lesser extent, the pit, have relied on data for decades to determine who their most valuable customers are, what they like, and how to transform all that information into repeat business through comps.

It’s only been a relatively recent phenomenon that the hospitality side of the industry has sought a similar view of its customers. In an era that has seen hotel, dining, spas and other non-gaming amenities come to dominate revenues for the large Las Vegas Strip casino resorts, technology is catching up with the hotel side of the industry in the form of software and systems that mine data from every corner of a resort.

The result is a complete picture of where in a resort a given customer is spending money, and how much. It is information used to guide decisions on room pricing, marketing offers and, combined and integrated with the data from the casino loyalty clubs, to get the best return on marketing dollars.

Casino resorts were not run efficiently when there were separate systems for the hotel and casino, comments Marco Benvenuti, co-founder and chief marketing and strategy officer for Duetto, a software and consulting firm that supplies revenue enhancement solutions for combined casino resort

operations. “Basically, you had two databases, one for casino players—which, by the way, got all the attention of the marketing resources—and another for non-casino customers,” says Benvenuti, who co-founded Duetto after creating a combined revenue management system at Wynn Resorts.

Traditionally, while there was a marketer in charge of interpreting data from non-gaming revenue streams, “it was a very disjointed effort,” says Benvenuti.

“For example, you would say, ‘We have a customer that always comes to this spot and spends all his money; let’s do this for them. It was very ad-hoc.”

At Wynn Resorts, Benvenuti spent just over a year as IT director before being named executive director of enterprise strategy, charged with creating an ecosystem for managing all revenue streams. “When I took over, I wanted to join both databases together into one database,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Look, the value of a dollar is the value of a dollar.’ So now, we can create all the assumptions we want on the profitability of these revenue streams.”

Benvenuti says he dedicated his company to a “more cultural effort” to view data from all revenue streams. “We looked at the true enterprise lifetime profitability of each customer that we had in the database, regardless of whether they were on the casino side or on the non-casino side.”

Luke Pfeifer, director of product management for Agilysys, another hospitality solutions provider that works with the casino industry, followed a similar path from hospitality to gaming. Pfeifer says he joined Agilysys after using the supplier’s software suite during his years in hotel and resort management.

He says he was drawn to gaming because casino resorts face similar problems in managing data to what he experienced in resorts. “What I just found fascinating was how the non-gaming spend at casino resorts was becoming more of an important focal point,” he says. “I knew that would be something in which Agilysys would help lead the charge, working with products I already knew, working in an industry I already knew, but also being able to touch the casino market and casino industry.”

“The industry has recognized that a dollar in the bank is a dollar in the bank regardless of where on property it was spent,” agrees Dan Skodol, vice president of revenue analytics for the Rainmaker Group, another firm providing revenue management solutions to the casino resort industry. “As revenue from non-gaming attractions overtakes that of gaming, the concept of total guest value is more important than ever.

“Without a complete view of customer worth, important marketing and hotel yielding decisions quickly become suboptimal.”

Finding the Right Offers

Solutions providers in revenue management all have one overriding principle: know your customer.

Duetto GameChanger suite

For Duetto, it’s through the GameChanger suite, with tools like the Find My Rate app, which draws on prior customer spend data to determine a rate that is right for the customer and the resort.

Casinos can leverage Duetto’s solutions to forecast demand for each of their segments and yield group and transient rooms at the right price with the right comp criteria and reinvestment rates.

Duetto’s GameChanger suite is a modern and finely tuned version of the type of combined system Benvenuti created at Wynn. “Back then, we created what they called Wynn Private Access, a kind of secret gear to the loyalty program where you are flagged and considered a VIP,” he recalls. “You have a special number from the moment you make the reservation—a special concierge, special access to clubs, etc. It was possible because of the data they have.

“Many people who are part of this program today are not big gamblers. They are big spenders, but they are not big gamblers.”

Benvenuti says he used what he learned at Wynn to start Duetto in 2012, and it was his “great luck” that cloud technology happened to be advancing rapidly at the same time. “A platform that is scalable doesn’t need to be the repository of all the data, but it needs to connect all the data in a fast, reliable, scalable, useable manner,” he explains. “The fact cloud technology made a lot of advancement in the past 10 years was the perfect storm. What we pay for storage now is a fraction of what you would pay for storage 20 years ago, but also, everything becomes scalable and succeeds because you’re able to use services like Amazon Web Services, which takes care of a lot of headache that previously, an IT department would need to struggle to take care of.

“We build on the Amazon Web Services, and from the beginning, our own goal has been to connect, piece by piece, with every source system. We started with hotel systems, and then we went into paper management, and CRM systems, the hotel reservation system, and external data sources, to become really this backbone of a platform that can massage the data and serve the data to applications, whether they’re our application or applications from a third party, in a scalable, reliable, easy manner, that can be then consumed for final decision.”

Benvenuti says advances like this have changed the face of casino resort marketing.

“If you look at casinos, direct marketing has always been what I call an asynchronous process,” he says. “You have meetings with all the different departments and say, ‘OK, we’re going to do this offer. These players are going to get a free room, those are going to get a rate of X, those a rate of Y.’ Then, you print and mail or, for the ones that are more advanced, send an email. The customer receives a very static offer.”

Duetto’s technology allows the offer to be modified over time—the first email offering a $55 rate, for instance, can be followed up if not taken by a second message offering $45, or if conditions with room inventories change, a second follow-up offering a free room.

“When they use our technology, direct marketing changes, culturally, because now you can dynamically deal those offers,” Benvenuti says.

He adds that the technology also is effective for non-gaming customers seeking a vacation in a gaming resort. A significant percentage of Las Vegas visitors find room rates through online travel agents (OTAs) such as Expedia or Hotels.com, he notes. “That is a lot of money that the casinos have to pay the OTAs, because they pay a very high commission. And the reason is they usually don’t have technology to immediately recognize the customer if they come to the website, especially the non-gamers, and give them special rate to undercut the OTAs and have them book right away.”

Benvenuti notes that Duetto client Affinity Gaming is using the system to do just that. “You can go to the Affinity website and sign up for the loyalty program online right away, and just by virtue of signing up for the loyalty program, even if you never stayed at one of their properties before, you can get a rate immediately that will actually be better than what you will find on Expedia.”

Holistic Approach

Agilysys Infogenesis

For Agilysys, revenue management comes via the rGuest Analyze suite, which draws data using applications LMS and InfoGenesis to provide customizable dashboards to aid in marketing decisions.

Agilysys also has tools to add efficiency to restaurant management—rGuest Seat provides reservation, table management and wait-list management; rGuest Pay Gateway provides secure payment transaction processing.

“rGuest Analyze is our analytic system that brings together the cross-property and cross-revenue-center information, to be able to give a holistic picture of the guest,” says Pfeifer. “We also have partners that provide similar value in bringing it all together in a dashboard, then turning that back into offers that are very targeted to the guests.”

Pfeifer says a revenue manager from the non-gaming side who is looking at the guest holistically will be able to pinpoint ways to increase spend across the resort. But it’s not only used to capture the “highest guest wallet share,” he adds. In addition to benefiting the hotel, the guest receives targeted offers—value for the activities the data shows he or she loves.

“There are two aspects to this,” Pfeifer says. “The first one is a concentration on targeted up-sells: I’m checking in and have the option to have a suite for an extra $40 a night. That suite is perishable inventory that I wasn’t going to sell anyway; it was going to sit empty. Now, I’ve got another $40 out of it; I had a revenue uplift for the property by capturing that up-sell.

“And the guest is now thinking, ‘Wow—I just got a suite for an extra 40 bucks. What a great experience!’ If you hit the right target and the right price point on the up-sells, you are not only getting the revenue uplift; you have the improved experience for the guest—They’ll see it as a ‘wow’ experience.”

Pfeifer says the Agilysys suite communicates with the casino management system to bring gaming data into the mix that completes the holistic customer profile. “We do integrations with the major casino management systems, where we will provide non-gaming spend information,” he says. “So, all of that non-gaming spend information—room, spa, point-of-sale, etc.—can actually be made part of the patron’s profile.

“And there are now many gaming establishments that are actually having players earn points off that spend. As opposed to just earning value off your spend on the gaming side, the industry is really starting to recognize that there is actually a lot of value around this non-gaming spend, and that we should be recognizing those patrons that may spend very heavily on the non-gaming side.”

Optimizing Room Rates

For Rainmaker Group, data aids pricing in tools such as GuestREV, which instantly optimizes room rates according to a guest’s historical spend across a property.

GuestREV Mobile enables instant, anywhere-anytime access to full interaction with pricing functions and reports in real time via smartphone or tablet.

Rainmaker also offers GroupREV, a stand-alone pricing software solution designed to apply the same past data for group pricing.

“Rainmaker has long been positioned to capture spend data from multiple sources and apply the appropriate margins on different revenue streams,” says Skodol, “with a particular focus on ensuring that the most profitable guests have access to scarce hotel inventory at any given time.

“The most common method for collecting non-gaming revenue is through folio charges in the PMS. Recognizing that not every guest elects to charge items back to their rooms, we have the means to capture non-gaming data from various other repositories on the hotel side, including loyalty databases. Once we pull data over into our systems, we combine all available gaming and non-gaming spend data to assess overall customer worth. We then apply a segmentation scheme that helps operators easily understand the value of a customer relative to others, and recommend what types of rates, offers and/or comps to extend to each segment at any given time.

“Customer loyalty is driven by ensuring that a property’s most valuable guests always have access to rooms. Even a less valuable guest will not be systematically shut out from rooms, as the system dynamically yields availability and will grant that guest access to a room at appropriate times.”

The boom in non-gaming amenities in the casino industry shows no signs of slowing down, even in regional casinos, which means the value of effective technology to capture and use the mountain of data will only grow.

“The amount of effort they’re putting into the non-gaming side is pretty astonishing,” says Benvenuti. “The things they’re doing to start capturing the non-gaming dollars is quite impressive.”

“The emergence of new regional gaming markets has made gaming ubiquitous, but even more of a commodity than it has been in the past,” notes Skodol. “I believe that where intra- and inter-market competition is most fierce is where non-gaming will continue to develop as a means of differentiation, for both properties and markets as a whole.”

He adds that having the complete picture of each guest’s preferences will increase the effectiveness of personalized service. “Understanding spending patterns unlocks the potential for

personalizing future experiences for the guest, which further enhances guest loyalty and can help drive more direct bookings for the hotel,” Skodol says.

“I do think that the old notion of ‘if you build it, they will come’ is dead. Operators that understand how to best leverage product, technology, data and people in concert with one another will prove to be the most successful.”