Las Vegas hoping CES signals tourism upturn

Friday, Jan. 4, 2002 | 11:22 a.m.

Las Vegas tourism leaders hope a new year, a new exhibit hall and an established convention will jump-start the city's midweek visitation slump.

The International Consumer Electronics Show, conducted annually in Las Vegas by the Arlington, Va.,-based Consumer Electronics Association, comes to town next week with the hope of being as strong as ever. The first major convention of 2002 will bring an estimated 100,000 people to Las Vegas Monday through Jan. 11.

Organizers of CES say the world's insatiable appetite for all things digital will make the show compelling to industry professionals. The show is not open to the public.

CES spokeswoman Lisa Fasold said the show's turnout won't surpass the 2001 event's record 126,000 attendance, nor do show organizers expect to break the 1995 record of 2,089 exhibitors.

"But we sold more exhibit space in December than in any previous December preceding a show," Fasold said, noting that the 1.2 million square feet of exhibit space will make it the largest CES to date by that measure.

Fasold theorized that the late rush was the result of exhibitors holding out to see what world events unfolded before making a commitment. She also said CES organizers laid the groundwork for a bigger show five years ago when the association decided to broaden the scope of the event to include more varieties of technology.

The diversification of the show helps because some technology sectors will grow even when others are in a slump. This year's show will feature 17 pavilions with different types of technology, including digital entertainment games, Internet audio, imaging technology, wireless applications, "Bluetooth" wireless, digital cars and other mobile products.

The show opens with a keynote address by Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect for Microsoft Corp., Monday night. Gates also kicked off Comdex this year and was the keynote speaker at Comdex and CES last year.

The trade show floors are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday. Exhibits will be open at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Las Vegas Hilton, the Riviera hotel-casino and the Alexis Park Hotel.

It will be the first show ever at the Convention Center's 1.3 million-square-foot South Hall expansion. The two-story center also has 51 meeting rooms that span Desert Inn Road and connect the new building with an existing one.

"We had some of our exhibitors go into the new building," Fasold said. "They really like it. They're (LVCVA) supposed to be putting some of the last paint touch-up on this week."

The Consumer Electronics Association, which represents more than 650 U.S. technology companies, was one of the staunchest backers of the LVCVA's bid to build the $150 million expansion. At one point, the LVCVA tried to negotiate long-term leases for the show at lower rates in exchange for financial backing to build the expansion.

While the LVCVA eventually built the expansion with public bond money, CES organizers were committed to conducting their show in Las Vegas and have show dates calendared through 2022.

The completion of the Convention Center expansion enabled CES to move exhibits from the Sands Expo Center at the Venetian hotel-casino. The Venetian has since booked the 10,000-delegate Video Software Dealers Association and Internext, a technology show for the sex industry, at the same time as CES.

Exhibits at the Alexis Park are for high-end audio equipment and will enable conventioneers to experience sound systems in the comfort of a hotel room.

CES has been a showcase for computerized consumer products like home entertainment systems, PCs, "smart" home systems, wireless communications and mobile telephone products. It's considered one of the more user-friendly of the major technology trade shows that come to Las Vegas, unlike Comdex, which focuses more on computer components and how the technology works.

Fasold said industry leaders like Microsoft, America Online, Palm, Panasonic, Philips, Sanyo Fisher, Sony, Sprint and Verizon are among the exhibitors at this year's show and while individual attendance per company is expected to be down, there have been no major cancellations by exhibiting companies.

In November Comdex attendance was down by as much as 40 percent by some estimates. Fasold said the diversification of the show should keep attendance in six figures.

She said home entertainment technology like Microsoft's Xbox video game system and the emergence of digital photography and music will keep the show strong this year, even though some dot-com companies have disappeared.

"And we don't think people would stay away because of travel fears," Fasold said. "They've traveled since Sept. 11, they've flown at Thanksgiving and at Christmas, so they know that it's safe."

This year's CES is a midweek event, unlike previous years. Fasold said the midweek scheduling is just a quirk in the calendar and not a plan to bring visitors in when Las Vegas needs them most.

She said the show was squeezed into the Monday-through-Friday period because show exhibits have to clear out for the next major conventions and there was less time after the holidays for set-up. The event will be back on a Thursday-through-Sunday schedule for the 2003 show.

According to Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority statistics, occupancy levels are off more severely for midweek visits than weekends. For the first 10 months of 2001, midweek occupancy is off 4 points to 84.1 percent at the city's hotels and motels compared with the previous year. Overall, occupancy is down 3.7 points to 86.8 percent for the first 10 months of 2001 compared with last year.

Healthy convention attendance for the first 8 1/2 months of the year has kept the city's convention visitation above last year's levels. The LVCVA says 3.5 million conventioneers have visited Las Vegas through October, up 8.4 percent over the 3.2 million people in the previous year.

Those numbers are up despite a 37.4 percent attendance downturn in September and a 6 percent decrease in convention visits in October.

Many tourism experts had pointed to Jan. 1 as "the magic date" for visitation to Las Vegas to begin rebounding.

CES is the first major show of 2002, but not the only major convention in Las Vegas in January. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association Super Show is scheduled at the Sands Expo Center Jan. 21-23. That show, expected to draw 50,000 people, will run at the same time as the National Association of Television Program Executives show at the Convention Center and the Las Vegas Hilton, an event expected to draw 20,000 people.

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