Las Vegas was unveiled Tuesday as the host of the 2013 World Route Development Forum, marking the first time the event will be in the US.
Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority will co-host the event with McCarran International Airport. The authority's senior vice president of marketing, Cathy Tull, told Airline Business Daily following Monday's signing ceremony: "The airport will open a new international terminal in 2012. It's a good opportunity to show that. It's good timing for us."
Routes Events senior vice president David Stroud says Routes began talking to Las Vegas at the 2009 forum in Beijing. A year of talks concluded last week when Las Vegas formally approved hosting the 2013 event. "We're thrilled to take it there," Stroud says. "I understand they have a few conventions there so they know what they are doing."
Tull says McCarran's new international terminal will feature six gates and a significantly improved customs facility compared with the current outdated four-gate international facility. "This will be an opportunity to match the experience of Las Vegas as a destination," she says.
Tull says McCarran now has 139 international flights per week, including seven that were launched by British Airways late last year. She says the international market "has been a great market" with new upcoming routes by WestJet from Ottawa and Winnipeg and by Virgin Atlantic from Manchester. But she acknowledges the airport is now looking to fill some of the void left by Mexicana, which had 10,000 seats in the Las Vegas-Mexico market before it ceased operations in August.
By Las Vegas standards, Routes is small, filling only 3,000 of the 152,000 hotel rooms the sin city will have by 2012. But Tull points out the forum brings "the right people" to Las Vegas and "this event has a great track record".
Source: Flight Daily News
