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The Process of Transformation,
by Timothy Schneider, Publisher, SportsTravel
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| Los
Angeles, CA – December 2015 / Newsmaker Alert / As I walked the aisles
and thanked the exhibitors on the closing day of the TEAMS ’15 Conference
& Expo held last month in Las Vegas (please see the photo report, which
begins on page 23), I also invited them to join us at TEAMS
’16 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Every one of the exhibitors I spoke
with indicated that they were looking forward to doing so. They tended
to break into two groups: 1) Those who have never been to Atlantic City
or have not visited Atlantic City recently. 2) Those who are based in the
Northeastern U.S., are familiar with Atlantic City and are pleased that
TEAMS will be held within driving distance of where they’re located.
|  In
Atlantic City, exhibitors from both of those groups and all of the attendees
at TEAMS ’16 will discover a destination that’s in the process of an exciting
transformation. One of America’s first resort and convention destinations,
Atlantic City has long been known as a gaming destination. But with the
spread of legalized gambling in various forms around the country, the casino
business in Atlantic City has been constricting. The good news is, with
fewer casinos, the profits for the city’s remaining casinos are increasing.
But the transformation of Atlantic City will require more than the restructuring of its casino business and the city’s leaders realize that. To diversify its visitor profile, the city’s convention bureau, Meet AC has embarked on an ambitious program to attract more meetings and conventions to Atlantic City. Even more impressively from the standpoint of the sports-event industry, Meet AC has launched the Atlantic City Sports Commission for the sole purpose of attracting sporting events and their positive economic impact to the seaside destination. Both Meet AC and the Atlantic City Sports Commission point to numerous venues – both natural and man-made – that are ideal for a wide variety of sporting events and the meetings and conventions of sports-related organizations. One such venue will be the site of TEAMS ’16: the Waterfront Conference Center at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City, which recently celebrated its grand opening. The $125 million facility, which offers 100,000 square feet of flexible event space and can accommodate meetings of up to 5,000 people, has already helped stimulate a significant boost in business. At its opening, the Waterfront Conference Center had generated bookings of 90,000 room nights for its first 12 months. Along with TEAMS ’16, nearly 100 other meetings have been booked into the new space, including Meeting Professionals International’s 2016 World Education Congress. We are thrilled that the TEAMS Conference & Expo is playing a part in the transformation of Atlantic City as it repositions itself as a truly unique, multi-faceted American destination. We invite you to play your part by joining us at TEAMS ’16, September 26-29, 2016, in Atlantic City. For more information, please see pages 28-29, call 877-577-3700 or visit TEAMSconference.com. On behalf of all of the people who bring you SportsTrave/ magazine and the TEAMS Conference & Expo, here’s wishing you a happy holiday season and all of the best in 2016! This current issue of SportsTravel can be viewed in digital format online by clicking here. ### SportsTravel,
the sports world’s event magazine, is published by Los Angeles-based Schneider
Publishing Company, which also publishes Association News.
Founded in 1997, SportsTravel was the first magazine to identify
and serve the sports-related travel and event industry. Schneider Publishing
organizes the TEAMS Conference & Expo, the world’s largest gathering
of sports-event organizers. TEAMS
’16 will be held September 26–29, 2016, in Atlantic City. In addition,
Schneider Publishing organizes the
Meetings Quest trade-show series
for corporate and association meeting planners. The travel markets served
by Schneider Publishing generate 106 million hotel room nights annually.
For more information, visit SchneiderPublishing.com
or call toll-free 877-577-3700 or 310-577-3700 if dialing from outside
the United States.
Association News, Meetings Quest, SportsTravel and TEAMS are registered trademarks of Schneider Publishing. |
