How Westgate Las Vegas Keeps Legendary Vegas Alive

Glenn: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody, it’s your hospitality friend Glenn. And boy, am I excited today. Not just because I have Dawn Rawle here who happens to be SVP, marketing, advertising and guest experience here at the incredible Westgate Las Vegas. But we are standing on the stage where Elvis performed and I’ve recently seen Barry Manilow. How amazing is.

Dawn: [00:00:19] That? Yes. Absolutely amazing. Probably one of the most legendary places in Las Vegas, if I do say so myself.

Glenn: [00:00:27] I will double say so. Yes, on that one. So I got like little tingles all over me because everyone out there knows I am a freak for live music. And this is just one of the most incredible places to be, not just because of the music, but because of the heritage and because of what everything that’s happened here is meant to the greater Las Vegas city.

Dawn: [00:00:45] Yes, absolutely. So this theater opened in 1969, opened Glenn with Barbra Streisand and Barbra Streisand is Not Big Enough was then followed by Elvis Presley. And to your point, we are standing on the stage that Elvis performed on the planking is Elvis planking that he walked on. So this is all original stuff in here. You know, then carried on with all of the greats. We had Liberace, we have Barry Manilow again, our current resident in house with us. And Margaret, everyone who was a level ran through this building. And on this stage.

Glenn: [00:01:27] I mean, it is, it is absolutely incredible. I had no idea Liberace played here. Yes I did, I went for a little walk around the property and I saw Liberace photo, Barry Manilow, and then a really cool Elvis picture there as well. So that’s and I was lamenting, I’m like, oh, wish I had had a chance to see Liberace. That would have been amazing.

Dawn: [00:01:45] Yep, absolutely.

Glenn: [00:01:46] So all right, so you have all of this heritage and you’re keeping that heritage alive with Barry Manilow and other bands. You know, you got Air Supply. Air supply is coming. Yeah.

Dawn: [00:01:55] Get lost in love.

Glenn: [00:01:56] I know, and I will say, yeah, there are a couple of other things that I absolutely love that you do here musically. You know, I’m a hippie jam band guy. You do that every September ish. You do this big jam band.

Dawn: [00:02:06] Blues band? Yes. Yeah.

Glenn: [00:02:08] I love that. So you’re really doubling down on that guest experience, which I think is so important here in Las Vegas everywhere in general, but so much more here. So, so just away from the music for a second and all that. How are you thinking globally about guest experience and what they want today when they have a resort, when they’re coming to a casino resort?

Dawn: [00:02:26] So we, Glen, are a little bit different here. We know in Las Vegas it was the city kind of went on a build it bigger, build it bigger, tear down the old. And I feel like this property is so unique and so special because we’ve kind of done the inverse and said, no, we’re leaning in. And when we think about the legendary performers, the legendary people, the legendary sports events that occurred in this building, and just the history and tradition steeped within these walls, like we lean into it and we lean into it hard.

Glenn: [00:03:01] You’re leaning into it very hard this summer. They did it last summer. I’m psyched it’s coming again. Was the 19691969?

Dawn: [00:03:08] Yes.

Glenn: [00:03:09] That’s so cool. Recreating that moment for people like, you know, that was a year before my debut when he played here, so I never would have had that experience. I love that you’re creating it and, and were able to touch history and connect the past Las Vegas with modern Las Vegas.

Dawn: [00:03:24] Yes. Yes, absolutely. And it’s not just in entertainment. When you think about the the entirety of this building, we have the world’s largest Benihana. Steps away from us, 50 years old. That was put in right after this property opened. When you think about the legacy of our Sky villas, and they opened in 1995 to welcome all of the super high end players in the city. You know, those walls, if they could talk up there, we’d have stories for days.

Speaker 3: [00:03:52] So what are what are customers looking for?

Glenn: [00:03:54] And you’re kind of a little bit unusual because as a Westgate resort, you have a built in audience of owners. Yes. Right. That may or may not own this specific location, but then you have your general customers as well and a thriving casino convention business. So how do you balance it? How do you think about it? And how do you think about creating amenities and moments and experiences that are going to wow all those different types of customers?

Dawn: [00:04:17] Well, it keeps us on our toes.

Speaker 3: [00:04:19] Yeah.

Dawn: [00:04:19] I’m sure. Let me tell you that. But it’s fantastic. This building is so dynamic and changes really daily in what we do. On any given day, we could have an entire hotel that’s sold out and servicing guests next door at the LVCVA we could have a huge group of casino guests coming in. And I think at the core of all of that, it’s creating real experiences for these people. If we have Super Bowl, we want to wow everyone and do the best Super Bowl event down in race and sports book. Again, the largest if we’re doing a convention, we are focused on delivering above and beyond and overindexing with our convention guest. So it’s keeping it real to each of these verticals, knowing what our guests want and making sure that we’re here to deliver it.

Glenn: [00:05:07] That phrase, keep it real. You know, we pray we talk a lot about keeping things authentic. The more you lean into authenticity and being really what you should be, I think the more success you’re going to have people feel it, people smell it. They just know that sort of thing. And what I’m afraid that a lot of some of the mega resorts and stuff have gone to is much more everything feels like it’s right, but it doesn’t have that same soul to it here because of the the history and legacy you’ve got that to build on. And then it just kind of like it just kind of like mushrooms and, you know, explodes on itself.

Dawn: [00:05:42] It does. And I think, you know, when, when I think about this and when I think about the core of what makes all of this great, it’s our team members and it’s the service that we deliver to guests. And again, it’s service in all of these verticals because that’s what a convention guest is looking for. That is what a timeshare owner is looking for. That’s what a resort guest is looking for. And when you come into Big Blue’s Bender, that’s what you’re looking for in this room when you see shows.

Speaker 3: [00:06:08] And what I love is.

Glenn: [00:06:09] You’ve got Barry Manilow one night, and then you can have something like the big blues bender another weekend. And those are two totally different types of audiences. Yes. Yet you’re still able to satisfy all of those different types of communities. That’s pretty that’s pretty interesting. So where’s all this going? What are you thinking about, generally speaking, and how to keep ahead of the trends and make people wanting to spend money with you and come back here instead of the 100 other thousand rooms in the city?

Dawn: [00:06:33] Again, I’m going to go back to service. We pride ourselves in delivering that legendary Las Vegas vibe. If you are looking for that, this is the building that you want to be in. You’re going to walk in, you’re going to see Jimmy the doorman out there greeting you, and he is going to remember your name the whole entire trip. I think we have people that have been in this building upwards of 40 years. And I think in some buildings, people, people don’t welcome it like we do. We want nothing other than a team member that has walked in here for 40 years, served our guests, done a great job, and we want them to continue forward with that. And I think that’s why we’re really thriving in this building is because, again, it’s leaning into legendary with our physical structure. It’s leaning into legendary with everything that you see around you, and it’s legendary team members that bring it all together.

Glenn: [00:07:26] I love that phrase legendary because that kind of just frames how everything should be done from experience to service to cleanliness to absolutely everything.

Dawn: [00:07:36] Yes, absolutely. That’s what we strive for. That is our tag legendary Vegas fun, and I hope we’re delivering it for you today.

Glenn: [00:07:44] You are. And this will talk about this is a legendary podcast right here. Again, look at this. Look where I’m standing right now. What an honor to be here with Dawn. Dawn, thank you so much.

Dawn: [00:07:54] Thank you.

Glenn: [00:07:55] Glenn. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Guys like, share, subscribe, all that good stuff. And we’ll see you right back here on No Vacancy.