Vegas' new campaign reimagines a familiar welcome

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA)'s new campaign, Welcome to Fabulous, elevates one of the city's most iconic landmarks: for VP of marketing Fletch Brunelle, British visitors and travel agents remain central to that warm welcome

"When we think about our international visitation, the UK is our largest overseas market, and has been going back in time to 2000 and earlier," Fletch explained. "The UK is extremely important. They bring travellers to Las Vegas that stay longer, spend more, and really are great partners with our hotels and our attractions in the destination. So we love UK visitors — and they love Las Vegas."

Reimagining a Las Vegas icon

The new campaign builds on the city’s legacy (inspired by the iconic sign that was installed in 1959) while looking firmly to the future.

"When we take a look at our ad campaigns going back to probably our most recognisable, back in the early 2000s, What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas, that was our domestic campaign, and that was with us until about 2020, when we were about to launch a new campaign, What Happens Here, Only Happens Here. Then the pandemic hit...

"So this is literally the first new campaign that we’ve had in 25 years."

The campaign, which spans multimedia and out-of-home advertisements, spotlights often undersold parts of the destination that haven't previously starred in campaigns. “We wanted to make sure that people could understand the energy and excitement of the destination, and that when you take a look at some of the places that we actually filmed, it shows some of the exciting older parts of Las Vegas that we hadn’t been featuring in the past.

"For us, when you hear the word Las Vegas, people conjure up their image of all the fun, energy and excitement, whether or not it’s domestic or international,” Fletch added. "So the new campaign is something to where we’ll make a couple of different tweaks to it, but by and large, we’re getting very good results, and it’s tested very positively with consumers domestically."

Visitation to Vegas

International demand remains robust, with the UK market leading the way. “When I take a look at international arrivals via the Harry Reid International Airport, we’re up about 7% through September."

He added, “International visitation is roughly 12% of all visitors to Las Vegas — again, the top overseas market being the UK — and last year was about 555,000 people from the UK. So that’s going to be up around 50,000 this year."

Value Vegas

Amidst cost-of-living concerns and shifting consumer expectations, the LVCVA has also been reframing its value story.

"When we think about value in the destination, we needed to retell that story, because when you take a look at social media today, and we looked at some overall responses, 97% positive, but there was a 3% group that was talking about some of the value issues — and frankly, some of them were recognised by the CEOs and some of the resorts.

"Bill Hornbuckle, who’s the CEO of MGM Resorts, on the earnings call last week, talked about, and I’ll use his phrase, shame on us for having things happen like $26 bottles of water in the hotel rooms in Aria."

"So they’ve gone through, they’re making adjustments,” Fletch continued. "So, depending upon what property you’re at, you’ll find the value for what you’re trying to experience in Las Vegas. People like to talk about the expensive things you can do, but we need to make sure we’re highlighting the things you can do on a budget.

"Frankly, right now, people are really unsure about the economy — domestically in the US as well as internationally — and when there’s uncertainty, people want to make sure they can get more for their dollar."

To bring that message to life, the LVCVA recently launched a Five-Day Sale. Fletch unpacked the results. "We ended up seeing that volume to our website was up four times versus a normal week. We found that conversions were up 120%. MGM Resorts talked about, during a normal week, they booked about 150,000 to 160,000 bookings a week; they actually booked 300,000 in that five-day window. And that’s just one company. We’ve had private conversations with others and found that they had seen great results as well."

Partnerships, he added, remain key to Las Vegas’s continued success. “For us, our job is to make sure that we can show the resorts what’s going on in the market,” he said. “We’re a very research-based organisation.

"We’ve been doing our visitor profile study going back to 1977, so we have a good track record of understanding customers, why they’re coming to Las Vegas. We also do monthly tracking — we look at what our ads are doing, how they’re performing, and where we can make adjustments."

The value adds to a Vegas vacation

Looking to next year, there’s plenty for agents to spotlight not just in, but around Vegas.

"As we take a look at what’s coming next year, we’ve got National Rugby League coming from Australia in the last week of February/first week of March. Obviously, Formula One is coming back again next November.

"It really is about highlighting the entertainment, the sports, and all the other things you can do — including the things that don’t cost money, like going out to Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire, Zion National Park or the Grand Canyon. We need to make sure we highlight those things as well."