Casino management case study: The Young Crowd

[Spee]

70% occupancy ain't great, probably barely above breaking even.

The first thing to do is set goals, e.g.:
- I want to average 80% occupancy over the next 12 months, 90% occupancy over the next 13-24 months, etc.
- My food revenue is xx% of my total revenue, I want to increase it to xx+yy% over the next 12 months.
- My beverage revenue is .....
- My gambling revenue is .....

Once I've set those goals, then I have something by which progress can be measured.

The next thing to do is to secure a financial commitment from the casino management. How much am I going to ask them to invest to accomplish these goals? What is the forecasted ROI?

The next question is whether or not the Gen-Xers would fill the bill. Since the premise of your thread assumes that they do, we'll go on that basis.

Gotta now go do some market research on Gen-Xers:
- what do they like
- if they gamble, then what do they gamble on?
- if they drink, then what do they drink?
- when they go out to eat, what do they like?
- covention space, definitely gotta get creative, so something out of the ordinary, maybe convert it to an indoor theme park (e.g., rock climbing, paint-ball, etc.); or convert it full time to music); in other words, do something with the convention space that no one else is doing, differentiate from the competition

At the same time, I would encourage the 50-ish white male core clientele to come enjoy the new features. What do aging WASP-ish males want more than anything? To be able to prove they are as young and virile as all the young bucks! That is a theme to build on.

They also want to stay bonded to their kids. So maybe you make a promotion like, Dads come and Sons/Daughters get one free night or at some discounted rate. That is a theme to build on.

As for the last question on table game marketing, IMHO that is the least of your worries. If you can make the casino resort complex desirable enough for people to book rooms, then they are going to do their fair share of gambling there.

One empty poker table do not a poker room make. If you want to create a focus on poker, then its going to take more than one table. Possibly you create daytime tournaments in the lounge during the day, while putting on modern lounge acts during the night. Lots of manual labor involved with moving tables, but that's probably cheaper than having unused space for 75% of the day.

But if you want to create a new emphasis on poker, then you are probably looking at a drastic modification of the existing gaming space. You're going to have to sell that to the casino manager and all of the various pit managers (e.g., slots, dice, BJ, etc.).

There's tons of ideas to work with here. I could probably write you a 10-20 page paper to expand on some of these thoughts. The main thing is that it's a whole strategy to change the face of the entire casino/resort complex, not just the casino, not just the hotel, not just the food/beverage segment.