Over 126,000 people are on their way to Las Vegas from all parts of the world for the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and for the first time since the recession, Las Vegas is sold out.

CES, Las Vegas

According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), the invasion by CES attendees, 2500 exhibitors, CEA organizers and international media will net the city $118 million in non-gaming revenue, most of it for lodging.

Vegas hotels are booked solid despite the fact that the city has added over 16,000 new rooms including ARIA and the other hotels in CityCenter and the newly opened Cosmopolitan.

The 126k+ attendee count expected this year is about the same as last year’s 126,641 count, and it’s a heck of a lot more than the 113,000 who came in 2009.

But the number of exhibitors this year (2500) is a full 25% more than than in 2010, and 1200 of these exhibitors are coming from outside the US. Travel spending this year at CES is likely to be a lot more than last year or the year before.

Shows that if the economy takes off and convention attendance figures and spending continue to creep upwards, the glut of new inventory won’t necessarily hurt Vegas. Even if you consider only January, the number of conventions with 10,000 or more attendees is stunning.

2011 International CES at LV Convention Center (Jan 06-09, 2011) –  126,000

PPAI Expo at Mandalay Bay (Jan 10-14, 2011) – 18,500

Redken Labs Symposium at Mandalay Bay (Jan 16-18, 2011) – 10,000

Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade Show at Sands Expo (Jan 18-21, 2011) – 55,000

Winter LV Market at World Market Center (Jan 24-28, 2011) – 50,000

Surfaces 2011 at Mandalay Bay Events Center (Jan 25-27, 2011) – 25,000

Air-Conditioning Heating Refrigerating Exposition Expo at LV Convention Center (Jan 31-Feb 02, 2011) – 40,000

March is just as big for Vegas, when International Hospitality Week 2011 brings in 31,000 attendees and ConExpo-Con/Agg 2011 will bring in over 140,000 attendees. In fact, it’s such a problem of plenty that some of these conventions are actually trying to reduce attendance to keep it manageable.

CES in particular has cracked down pretty hard. They raised the fees and have reduced exhibitor space. But this has created its own problems. Last year, the CEA had to ask hotels to kick out guests who were meeting with CES attendees and exhibiting in their rooms instead of booking exhibition space at the Convention Center.

But for Vegas, it’s a good problem to have – one which most cities would be happy to tackle.

Photo credit – CEA

On Sunday, Oct 31, 2010, the curtain finally came down on the Shanghai World Expo, but not before the 184 day world’s fair brought together 73 million visitors (3.5 million international visitors) and 190 participating nations, with a total of 264 participating organizations hosting visitors in 200 structures.

Shanghai World Expo 2010

By any standard, the size and scale is daunting and will be hard to replicate. The Expo clocked an average of 400,000 daily visitors and a peak of 1.03 million visitors on Oct 16.  China spent $4.2 billion on the event, and a mind-boggling $44 billion on infrastructure improvements.

They organized over 10,000 promotional events around the world and over 20,000 cultural events at the Expo, and over 2000 domestic & overseas media turned up to report on the Expo.  The massive coverage by international media resulted in over 19.3 million news mentions.

The same massive size and scale applies to the tourism impact of the Expo on Shanghai, not to mention the boost to the tourism economies of participating nations.

According to the CNTA (National Tourism Administration), the direct tourism income from the Shanghai World Expo runs to over $12 billion. In addition, the spillover effect to adjacent cities caused a 20% bump in tourism services demand.

All told, the number of inbound visitors reached almost 99.8 million in the first nine months of the year. Foreign exchange earnings from inbound visitors hit $33.7 billion – a 15.8% increase from last year.

Also, the benefit to the tourism economies of participating nations has been just as huge. Korea, whose Expo Pavilion attracted 7.25 million visitors, just came out with a report that says the number of Chinese who will visit Korea over the next three years will increase by 450,000, which adds another $562.4 million to the Korean tourism economy.

Canada is also gearing up for an onslaught of Chinese tourists. The Canadian Pavilion received over 6 million visitors, and Canada got itself listed as an ‘Approved Destination’ so that Chinese tourists can now visit Canada without any restrictions.

Individual destinations in the US, especially Hawaii, California and Texas, also did pretty well in ramping up their brand at the Expo. The San Francisco delegation led by Mayor Gavin Newsom got a very warm welcome and lots of publicity as Shanghai’s Sister City.

The very fact that the US had a country pavilion was sufficient to help improve perceptions. It attracted over 7 million visitors, and Jose Villarreal, the US Commissioner General, declared the mission accomplished. He says – quote “We were able to tell an America story in an interesting way to a large number of Chinese citizens, many of whom have had very little exposure to America.”

A study of Expo visitors conducted by Shanghai’s Fudan University before and after they visited the USA Pavilion seems to indicate that Villarreal could be right. According to the study, 95.2 percent of those surveyed said “they want to travel to the USA.”

At a meeting between China’s tourism industry and the CNTA, it was revealed that over two million Chinese tourists are expected to visit the United States by 2015. This year’s total of the number of Chinese tourists visiting the US may already have overshot the previous estimate of 556,000.

Photo – stefano meneghetti