Next Stop: Vegas

The next stop for IPW 2020 is Las Vegas, an announcement unveiled Thursday morning in true Vegas style, complete with showgirls and a performance by Absinthe, on the closing day of the international travel conference.

For the 25th consecutive year, Las Vegas was named the country’s No. 1 trade show destination according to the Trade Show News Network (TSNN) “2018 TSNN Top Trade Shows” list. Las Vegas hosted 48 of the largest shows held in the country last year. That translates into 6,646,200 convention delegates who visited last year, surely helping to achieve the $6.5 billion in gaming revenue the city saw, $631 million of which was on the downtown strip.

The last time Las Vegas hosted IPW was in 2013. The city has a great relationship with US Travel Association President and Roger Dow, where he joked they had to get a bigger room for their press conference, before discussing how Vegas does everything in a big way, saying 2020 is going to be spectacular.

“The hosts in 2013 did a fantastic job but every time you go back to Las Vegas, it’s a different Las Vegas,” says Dow. “They keep adding and adding innovation, entertainment and activities just about everything that goes on in entertainment seems to start and happen there.”

Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority CEO Steve Hill, says marketing the city to the world is easy.

“I have the easiest job in America. I get to represent and sell Las Vegas,” Hill told the crowd. “We’re excited about hosting in 2020 and delegates are going to be there at a great time. The city is constantly reinventing itself and it’s a very exciting time.”

International visitation to Las Vegas now represents 20% overall, with Canada, Mexico and the UK the top three markets. 2018 numbers were strong with 42 million visitors last year and the city leading the nation in hotel room occupancy. 6.5 million of those visitors were there for 22,000 meetings.

“We’ve seen real progress in terms of lift. There are currently 229 weekly international flight from 26 different cities, and we announced 9 new international markets in just the last year.”

Exciting new highlights for next year include a Madonna residency at Caeser’s in November, 2019, a high tech tunnel loop in development with Tesla’s Elon Musk that will help transport Convention Centre attendees to their hotels and a gigantic sphere used for gaming and other entertainment activities as well as the construction of the new Raiders stadium.

Stay tuned for more details on all the new developments in Las Vegas from TravelPulse Canada.