Three years ago, Atlantic City’s meetings growth was meteoric. As Gary Musich, vice president of convention development for the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority (ACCVA) told Meetings East in November 2006, the first half of that year was a jackpot bonanza. Room nights booked were up 239 percent, total expected attendees were up 312 percent, and square footage booked at the Atlantic City Convention Center was up 241 percent, and with the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa as its vanguard, a bold renaissance was on to create a world-class resort where gaming was just part of an all-encompassing product mix.
Then came the twin storms of recession and competition from emerging markets in other Eastern states, together slowing investment, reducing volume and quashing planned mega-projects.
Putting on its best poker face, Atlantic City responded by playing its best marketing and investment cards, and while not quite trumping these down-revenue times, appears to have dealt itself the upper hand.
"While room night growth will remain flat heading into 2010, attendance at all convention center shows was up 4 percent through September of this year," Musich says. "In this environment, we’ll take stable."
With 14 new events booked this year and 12 new events booked for 2010, Musich says the outlook for 2011 and beyond is sunnier still.
There is much to buoy his confidence in the meantime. In 2008, Atlantic City grew room inventory by 20 percent, with two major additions contributing to nearly 3,100 new units: the 800-room Water Club and the 39-story, 786-room Chairman’s Tower at Trump Taj Mahal, which marked the completion of a $250 million project that included the renovation of the existing Trump Taj Mahal. The new Chairman’s Tower has three meeting rooms, each measuring roughly 1,200 square feet.
And with group, tradeshow and championship sporting events proving able counterbalances, Atlantic City’s maturing product mix is paying big dividends.
"We are reaping the benefits of our investments over the past several years," Musich says. "The length of stay in Atlantic City has tripled over the last decade, with leisure visitors averaging 2.6 days, and conventioneers spending 3.5 days."
Once celebrated as "The World’s Favorite Playground," Atlantic City has gone chips down before—but has always managed to reshuffle weakened hands into royal flushes, and that is especially so this time around. For planners and delegates alike, today’s winning face cards include a cutting-edge convention hall, five-star dining, a self-supporting spa culture and off-site options galore.
Full House
When it comes to meeting and staying in "Always Turned On" Atlantic City, what’s old is new and what’s new is contemporary, stylish, luxurious—and in the case of the convention center, eco-powered.
Already a recognized green leader, the convention center derives one-quarter of its electricity from its rooftop solar panels, the largest single roof-mounted solar array in the U.S. This September, the center received a $1.5 million grant from the State of New Jersey for construction of an on-site wind turbine, likely to supply another 25 percent of the center’s energy requirements. One of the Trade Show Exhibitors Association’s 2009 nominees for "Favorite Convention City," the center also maintains an aggressive recycling and conservation program.
The eco-centrism is generating new convention business—from the renewable energy sector itself.
"While designed solely with the environment in mind, our green initiatives are proving appealing to organizations like New Jersey’s Clean Energy Program, which recently chose to meet at the center," Musich says.
Reflecting Atlantic City’s seaside location, the center features wave-inspired carpeting, sea life medallions and flying fish hanging in its soaring skylit atrium. Within driving distance of nearly one-third of the U.S. population and 20 percent of the country’s business addresses, the center offers cutting-edge communications, 45 meeting rooms, generous prefunction space, 1,400 indoor parking spaces and, at 500,000 contiguous square feet, the largest floor between Atlanta and Boston.
The center is joined by skybridge to the 502-room Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center Hotel. The stylish property is one of the city’s most upscale meetings hotels, boasting two expansive ballrooms and 18 meeting rooms.
The convention center is also connected to the Atlantic City Rail Terminal, where the affordable Atlantic City Express Service (ACES) weekend train service arrives from New York City in just over two-and-a-half hours.
Hosting more than 520,000 attendees last year, who used nearly 141,000 room nights and generated $231.6 million in estimated delegate spending, the convention center has also proved a safe harbor in this stormy economy.
A landmark new ROI study from Washington, D.C.-based research firm Oxford Economics finds that for every dollar invested in business travel, businesses average $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits. Citing this study, along with new Center for Exhibition Industry Research findings of the cost differential between identifying potential customers at exhibitions ($215) and outside of exhibitions ($443), Jeff Vasser, president of the ACCVA, says after tracking delegate spending for years, "we now have a full picture of how business travel positively benefits the businesses that hold their trade shows, meetings and conventions here."
This "full picture" view informs continuing investment in new and revitalized hotels. A trio of 2008 newcomers—the Water Club, the boutique, 331-room Chelsea and the 206-room Courtyard by Marriott, all with meeting and function space—have advanced the trend toward non-gaming luxury, while several old standbys have adopted bold new identities.
For example, the 1,139-room Caesars Atlantic City, opened in 1979, is a fresh draw courtesy of The Pier Shops at Caesars, an over-the-ocean facility featuring world-class entertainment, premium restaurants and exclusive shops.
Harrah’s Atlantic City, opened in 1980, is newly transformed with its new 964-room, 47-story Waterfront Tower, which has elevated capacity by 60 percent to nearly 2,600 total rooms. Another Harrah’s highlight is the glass-domed, 23,000-square-foot pool and tropical oasis, transforming into a nightclub and event space at night.
Tropicana Casino and Resort, another meetings favorite in Atlantic City, also recently completed upgrades, adding several hot new features. Tropicana is pulsating with the rhythms of Cuba, courtesy of the new Havana Rooftop Slots and Rumba Lounge, where live entertainment is featured.
Dating to 1860, the 379-room Bally’s Dennis Resort, its famous Boardwalk-front courtyard long obscured, is breathing free again.
With major new developments on the horizon, the evolution continues.
On a Roll
While plans for two new mega-casinos announced in 2007—the MGM Grand Atlantic City, to be located north of the Borgata, and Pinnacle Atlantic City, destined for the site of the demolished Sands Casino Hotel—remain frozen, a third mega-project, from gaming and entertainment company Revel Entertainment Group, broke ground in late 2008 and is now visibly taking shape.
Slated for completion in mid-2011, the "beachfront casino entertainment resort" occupies one of the largest, most uniform and contiguous properties in Atlantic City. Including over 1,000 feet of beach frontage, the 20-acre development site, acquired by Morgan Stanley in mid-2006 for $70 million, sits next to the Showboat casino bordered by Oriental, New Jersey and Metropolitan avenues and the Boardwalk.
Plans call for two 710-foot, sleekly thin towers, the tallest in Atlantic City, each with 1,900 guest rooms and suites. Costing around $2 billion, the property is also expected to feature 150,000 square feet of casino space on two levels and 500,000 square feet of entertainment, dining and retail space, including a 5,000-seat special events center and a wedding chapel.
Atlantic City’s other big project is One Atlantic, a contemporary 10,000-square-foot event space atop the end of The Pier Shops at Caesars. Extending 100 yards over the Atlantic Ocean and offering panoramic beach, Boardwalk and ocean views, the glass-enclosed venue, expected to open this month, is already accepting reservations for 2010 events.
Intended to be the city’s premier independent social event space, One Atlantic will flexibly accommodate cocktail receptions for 1,000 and 500-person banquets, as well as intimate gatherings of as few as 20. An outdoor garden terrace will offer more than 2,000 square feet of space and can accommodate up to 200 guests.
One Atlantic’s gourmet custom catering will include special menus for Kosher, international, organic and vegetarian preferences. The lineup will also feature an award-winning mixologist, an expert sommelier and full outside catering and event planning services.
In transportation news, this spring saw Spirit Airlines commence daily nonstop service to Atlantic City International Airport from Boston’s Logan Airport. This summer, AirTran began twice-daily direct flights from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and weekend nonstop service from Orlando International Airport.
Aces Wild
The increasingly hot amenities mix in Atlantic City is also adding luster.
Six years ago, spas were virtually non-existent in Atlantic City, save some modest on-demand services. Credit the Borgata again with leading the way. Its Spa Toccare, opened in 2003 and thereafter expanded to 54,000 square feet, inspired a trend that has since gained considerable steam—along with manicures, hot rocks and the other accoutrements of a well-heeled spa culture.
Meanwhile, high-rollers can enjoy the three-hour, $5,000 Dieci Mani treatment at the Roman-inspired Qua Baths & Spa at Caesars Atlantic City, which includes the simultaneous attention of five masseuses. Ultra-deluxe, too, is the 36,000-square-foot Immersion Spa, a two-level, glass-enclosed pleasure dome atop the Water Club.
Other standouts include the luxurious Sea Spa at the Chelsea, Social Sauna included; the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa at Harrah’s; and the eucalyptus-steamed Vive Day Spa at the Showboat.
No trip to the spa is complete without some retail therapy, of course. In addition to standout venues such as the Quarter at the Tropicana Casino & Resort and the Pier at Caesars, the Atlantic City Outlets, The Walk is a multiblock retail, dining and entertainment venue.
From rolling wicker chair rides on the Boardwalk to the end-of-summer "Thunder Over the Boardwalk" Atlantic City Airshow, there are entertainment and leisure options for every speed.
The fifth floor of the new Chelsea is a red-hot social destination; hot clubs like B-Bar at the Borgata draw the nighttime set; summertime revelers hop to the beach bars at Trump Plaza, Bally’s and the Atlantic City Hilton; and the indoor pools at Harrah’s and the Water Club are year-round oases.
Bourbon Street meets the Boardwalk at the Showboat Atlantic City, where the House of Blues offers high-voltage entertainment at its Music Hall and private Foundation Room; the Borgata’s concert hall has become a second home for the Who; and the famed circa-1929 Boardwalk Hall hosts elite rockers like the Stones and sporting events such as the Atlantic 10 Conference men’s basketball championships, booked for the next three years straight.
Stephen Starr, Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay and Town & Country’s Geoffrey Zakarian are among the celebrity chefs enlivening a dining scene that includes recent arrivals such as the Atlantic City location of New York City’s top-rated Italian restaurant, Il Mulino, at Trump Taj Mahal. The restaurant addition was part of a $25 million upgrade at all three Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City: Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza and Trump Marina.
Meanwhile, the Absecon Lighthouse and Atlantic City Aquarium are popular attractions in a varied cultural scene; Atlantic City’s oceanside location provides myriad opportunities for day cruises, sailing, fishing, boating canoeing or kayaking; and with more than 30 area courses, Atlantic City was ranked sixth on ForbesTraveler.com’s "Top Ten Golf Cities in America" this year.
Proof positive of the drawing power of Atlantic City’s product mix were this summer’s tourism results. According to Vasser, Atlantic City visitors enjoyed the local attractions and restaurants, and hotel occupancy statistics reported by some of its partners far outshined the national average."
Musich says with the city’s continued focus on improving its infrastructure, amenities and services, the future looks bright.
"The more we revitalize and diversify, the healthier we become," he says.
—Freelancer Jeff Heilman’s best time ever in Atlantic City? Dressed in star-spangled red, white and blue, partying with the Stones at Boardwalk Hall. Unforgettable—just like Atlantic City.
