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Las Vegas as the Technology Hub

What comes to your mind when you hear “Las Vegas”? The Strip? Casinos? Games? Shows? Restaurants? Night clubs? Shopping malls? … I would probably call Las Vegas the Entertainment Center. I am not sure, however, if I would call Las Vegas the Technology Hub.

Last week, I attended the Caesars Hospitality Research Summit at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The technology panel gave us a talk of Creating the Premier Hospitality Technology Hub. I agree with the panel that Las Vegas has many mega hotels and casinos and that these casinos have state-of-art facility and cutting-edge technology to manage their giant consumer database. Indeed, Las Vegas has the potential of becoming the market leader of the service industry in almost every aspect of hospitality management and operations.

The panel reminds me a MSNBC news video about turning Las Vegas into a destination of medical tourism (as embedded in this post). Such discussions indicate that Las Vegas is making a big effort of re-positioning the city as a “new” tourist destination other than just the Entertainment Center. The urge of making a transformational change is loud and clear. Yet, I cannot see a clear picture of the city’s new brand. I believe that it takes every stake holder’s input to brand or re-brand a destination. In particular, the CVB and the government need to take the lead in that regard. The panel, however, did not directly answer my question of how much the CVB or the government supports their idea.

No matter what new position Las Vegas wants to take, I hope the city’s new brand will go along well with its existing image of an Entertainment Center. While it is good to have a diverse consumer base with multiple brand images, the results of a multiple-brand strategy could also be devastating if consumers get confused with different branding messages.

What do you think? Besides entertainment, what other attributes can be used to brand Las Vegas?

Interested in reading more about the Hospitality Research Summit? Please stay tuned for my next post about the Panel Discussion on Emerging Trends and Issues in Revenue Management.



References:
The picture was downloaded from the UNLV Library website.

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