In an unprecedented move, the largest North American trade show for the beverage service industry selected the Las Vegas Monorail (LVM) as its official transportation for shuttling attendees between the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) and many hotels on the Strip.
For this year's Nightclub & Bar/Beverage Retailer Beverage & Food Convention & Trade Show (dubbed "The Show" by the beverage industry), organizer Oxford Publishing Inc., based in Oxford, MS, worked with LVM to provide 20-percent discounted tickets for the show's monorail passengers. According to LVM, show ridership this year increased 22 percent over 2006 as a result of the initiative. The show, held March 4-7, and which drew about 25,000 delegates, has been held in Las Vegas for the past 22 years.
Jennifer Robinson, Oxford's COO, said that while attendees were free to choose their own transportation, the response to the monorail was "very positive with pretty much no complaints" and that the show plans to partner with LVM again next year. LVM said it was the first time a convention used the monorail as its main mode of transportation.
Robinson pointed out that burgeoning traffic in recent years led to the conclusion that the monorail was the best solution to move about a mass number of show-goers. "The taxi lines are terrible. We can only move 45 attendees on each of the shuttle buses we used in the past, and it can take up to an hour for the buses to complete their routes," said Robinson. "We've struggled to get maximum transportation for our attendees and looked into how LVM could help, especially in the last two years."
While Robinson noted the monorail isn't a complete substitute for taxi and bus services, she said meeting planners should "seriously look at it" as an alternative choice of group transportation. "It was cost-effective, and we felt we gave attendees a way to get to and from [the event] with ease."
With Las Vegas still growing at a blistering pace, mass transit in the city has been gaining momentum. Public double-decker bus service was introduced in 2005, and recently an LVM extension to McCarran International Airport, to be ready in 2011, was announced.