Atlantic City’s newest conference center is only six months old, but it’s already gaining traction in terms of future meetings booked and attendees expected — filling a void in the Shore town’s market.
Caesars Entertainment’s $125.8 million Harrah’s Waterfront Conference Center, when it opened, added about 100,000 square feet of new space.
Harrah’s Atlantic City Waterfront Conference Center
Caesars Entertainment
The conference center opened a year after a number of hotel rooms and meeting spaces left the market with the closure of four of the city’s 12 casinos last year, including the Revel and Showboat properties — leaving a wide gap in the Atlantic City market.
Since opening, Harrah’s conference center has nearly doubled its booked meetings and conventions through 2019.
When the center opened last year, there were 141 total confirmed bookings, according to data given to the Business Journal. Six months later — as of March 22 — bookings are now up to 258.
Officials expect to bring 300,000 attendees to Atlantic City as a result.
Total room nights booked has already clock in at nearly 200,000, up from the 140,000 figure in September last year, according to Caesars.
“The Waterfront Conference Center, in the past 6 months, has shown it can breathe new life into Atlantic City by growing non-gaming revenue and has highlighted the city as a premier destination for meetings and conventions,” said Michael Massari, Caesars’ senior vice president of national meetings and events.
“The facility’s large space, flexibility and functionality make this all possible,” he said.
Atlantic City has about 15,630 hotel rooms and more than 770,000 square feet of citywide meeting space, ranging from the 600,000-square-foot Convention Center to smaller event facilities.
Atlantic City is now seeing interest from organizations that typically book in other convention cities like Orlando, Fla., and Las Vegas, Nev., according to Jim Wood, president and CEO of Meet AC.