Stellar Events Blog

Recently I thoroughly enjoyed a Barnes & Noble appearance by my favorite novelist, Jodi Picoult. Her 15 best-selling books, including the current NY Times #1, Change of Heart, which had an initial printing of one million, explore topical issues with a style that appeals across generations. The overflow crowd was diverse, and the discussion was insightful.

Wait – this blog isn’t supposed to be about my weekend. It’s about meeting planning, incentive travel, and the business of running Stellar Events. Since attending an event often requires air travel, I’m going to stretch the concept and recommend any Jodi Picoult novel as the ideal way to make one’s time in the sky literally fly by.

Jodi Picoult and Marjie Wells

Last night I attended a special event hosted by Loews Hotels for meeting planners. In between the manicure, the chair massage, the Banana Republic fashion show and the artisanal cheeses (yes, this business has fine perks), I heard some unusual buzz.

The chatter is usually bright and cheery at this type of party. But, with today’s admittedly challenging economic trends, there were rumors: one of the largest Las Vegas hotels had furloughed over a thousand employees, and several upcoming citywide conventions have canceled their time in the gambling mecca.

If these tales are true, the timing is indeed unfortunate. Las Vegas has recently or will soon add many, many thousands of hotel rooms:

Palazzo (3,066 suites) primarily an additional tower at the Venetian: now open

Palms Place at the Palms Las Vegas (599 suites): opened last week

Trump International Hotel and Tower (1,281 suites): opens March 31, 2008

Wynn’s “Encore” Tower (2,034 suites): opens December 2008

Grand Hyatt Las Vegas at Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino – 2,973 rooms: opens late 2009

MGM City Center – a 4,000 room tower plus two 400-room high-end luxury hotels, including the Mandarin Oriental: opens late 2009

The bright side: Experienced negotiators (may I mention Stellar Events?) will be able to find outstanding bargains for future meetings.

As for the developers who planned these projects many years ago: Surely they knew they were gambling?

Recently Stellar Events ventured into the amazing arena of Federal government bids for meetings. We’ve had some success: we booked over 500 room nights in Rochester, NY in February! When I told the stunned hotel sales rep that the business had been awarded, she replied, “Are you kidding?”

Yes, helping the government plan meetings demands a sense of humor. Do they really think there is a hotel with meeting space and a campus-like setting within ten miles of downtown San Diego (in summer) for the mandated per diem rate of $139? Will attendees be dining on shrimp at the National Symposium on Shellfish?

Recently Stellar Events proposed a rather large and lengthy meeting that had to take place within 35 miles of the Brandenburg Station Road Gate of Ft. Knox. Louisville was the only option, and the hotel sales person assured me they met the distance requirement, especially since a new highway had opened. Since we couldn’t Mapquest a gate as a starting point, we figured we were good to go.

Our proposal was rejected as technically unacceptable because the hotel was judged to be 36 miles from the gate. We may have had the lowest bid for the desired package of sleeping rooms/meeting space/meals/audio-visual, but we’ll never know.

What we do know is that the Federal government is not willing to go the extra mile.

My recent post lamenting the lack of recycling for Las Vegas meetings led to a conference call with Gwen Migita, Corporate Director, Corporate Social Responsibility for Harrah’s Entertainment.

Good news just announced today: Harrah’s Entertainment is the first company in the casino industry to join the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leaders, a group of corporations who are taking serious steps to reduce their carbon footprints.  This is Harrah’s press release.

While there is still much need to improve recycling throughout Las Vegas in the visible areas such as paper/aluminum/plastic, Gwen discussed current efforts that a meeting planner or conference attendee would not see: turning cooking oil waste into bio fuels, processing gray water, reducing energy consumption, practicing acid recovery (for example, the method of discarding damaged silverware.)

Harrah’s is taking the lead in Las Vegas, and meeting planners and guests who care about the environment should applaud them.