Caesars SVP and Chief Sales Officer Mike Massari

Caesars Entertainment continues to expand its footprint with the goal of remaining a top player in the meetings and events industry. During the recent IMEX show in Las Vegas, Corporate & Incentive Travel publisher Harvey Grotsky sat down with Caesars’ SVP and Chief Sales Officer Mike Massari to discuss the state of the industry and what Caesars is doing to remain a leader.

Q. To what extent is Caesars involved with green meetings?

A. I think that wellness, sustainability, community involvement – these are mega trends in our industry and have been. They are not new.  They have been for a number of years. They will continue to be because I think customers have values. Facilities and operators also have values and it’s important to align the right values with each other. So, you will see us going really forward with wellness. You’ll see us at the top of the heap in terms of sustainability and community involvement as a company. This is important to us.

Q. How much are meeting planners really involved? Is that something that comes up all the time?

A. Yes, all the time. Every company is different. If you think about Fortune 500 companies, top associations, top trade show producers, they all have a different point of view on how they engage with the communities they live and operate in with their team members, with sustainability and with wellness, so we try to match those things. But, there aren’t many companies that aren’t thinking about this as well.

If you want to make the point that the execution of the meetings and events, the increase in sales, the increase in membership, the product roll out is the primary function, and these things are around the periphery and secondary, I won’t disagree with that at all. I would agree with that, but they are still there. And they are still part of the decision-making process, part of the customer expectation, and frankly, part of our DNA and fiber too. So, I won’t say it drives decisions, but it’s expected and we’ll live up to it, and we’ll live up to it in a welcome fashion because it is part of who we are too.

Q. How much has business bounced back since the pandemic?

A. We’re above our 2019 levels. I think business is stronger now than it was at any time pre-pandemic. People understand precisely why they gather together. They understand how important it is to the success of their organization or company. They lived life without the benefit of gathering together to move their business forward and they have no intention of doing it again.

Q. Going forward, next year for example, do you think the election will help our industry, or not help our industry? Do you think a lot of people are holding back because of the election?

A. We book a lot of business short-term. But, our typical window is much longer than measured in months. I think you’ll find people in my position who will say there are some who hold back and next year should improve when uncertainty is alleviated. Maybe. But, I don’t see a ton of that. This has been a very good year for us in general. Next year will be an excellent year for us, election or not.

Q. Given what happened during the pandemic, are there any plans in position to overcome what happened at that time? You hear there’s going to be another problem down the road. How do you plan for something like that?

A. I would continue to challenge our industry to be working on the advocacy side to make sure that our industry is viewed as an essential industry. If something like that were to happen again, when it occurs, you should view gathering together safely. You can’t live life optimally without gathering together, but you have to do it safely. But our industry needs to continue to advocate for policies that make meetings and events and gatherings essential in that type of environment.

Q. What are the plans for Caesars expansion?

A. If you want to compete in Las Vegas, in Atlantic City, in New Orleans, in Lake Tahoe and in Reno, but particularly in Las Vegas in the meetings and events world, if you don’t bring your ‘A’ game every day, you just get slaughtered. So, we’re constantly figuring out ways to improve our product, improve our people, our relations with our customers, our service levels and the way we interact with people and our customers. If you’re not innovating and trying to get better every day, you just can’t survive. You walk around here: MGM, Wynn, Caesars and others – these are people who are best in the world at doing this. If you don’t bring your ‘A’ game, they’re going to run right over you.

Q. How do you find getting adequate help? How do you go about getting seasoned professionals?

A. It’s not easy. I think you have to start at the beginning with this. It’s who are you going to be as an individual. How helpful and supportive are you going to be to your team members? How do you onboard them and get them ready for the job? How do you make sure they are supported and have the tools and resources they need when they are here? Are they compensated fairly and appropriately? Do they have the right type of work-life balance? You have to think through all that and make sure it’s a great place to work, because if it is not, there are other great places to work in this town. So, from an operational standpoint, where all our employees are in this community, it’s back to if you don’t bring your ‘A’ game, other  properties will just clean your clock.  If you’re not doing your job for your team members, then they’ll just take them from you.

I’ve been here 25 years. I have made more mistakes than I can count, but we work really hard at it. We try. We ask lots of questions. We try to be our best. I think people appreciate when they know that people that are around are working hard at it and trying. They’re doing their best. I think they really value that.

Q. Are you seeing any particular trends as far as meeting bookings going forward?

A. I’ll answer this question two ways. The first part of my answer is, the longer I do this, the more I realize that things stay the same over the years. I mean, this trade show set up is not dissimilar to the way the Grand Bazaar in Hungary was set up 2,000 years ago, right? It’s the way to connect buyers and sellers, so when you think about a general session and there’s a speaker and there is an audience, not dissimilar to the way things were set up at the Greek amphitheaters during the origin of democracy in Athens. Not a lot changes in those regards. Around the periphery, how do you connect the audience to the speaker to have engagement going on in real time? What is the technology? What are the pre-reads? What are the post surveys? What are the wellness components and the community involvement components that happen in tandem with the main communication and learnings? All those things are evolving, growing, changing, but the core doesn’t change a whole lot. So, I think there are two answers to that. The core doesn’t change much. The periphery is where we are constantly driving to evolve and get better at.

Q. Are there any plans to expand into new markets?

A. I think our company answer would be, we’re interested in knowing about new markets as they evolve, and if they are a good fit for our company, we’ll get after it. Beyond that, I don’t have any details to share about the possibilities. C&IT