The Four-Diamond IP Casino Resort Spa in Biloxi, Mississippi is an extraordinary
post-Katrina success story. The waterfront Biloxi Bay high-rise casino property, named the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino before the storm, was severely battered by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. In January 2007 the property re-branded as IP Casino Resort Spa after a total property renovation that upgraded the entire hotel and gaming facility, and in April 2007 it was awarded a Four-Diamond rating from AAA. Today the IP is attracting a new class of guest and building stronger regional loyalty. Proof of success is in the numbers: the 1,087-room IP is running at over 90 percent occupancy with a 300 percent higher average daily rate (ADR) since its post-Katrina renovations.
“Our owners and the entire property team worked hard to create the new IP Casino Resort Spa from the shell of the old property,” said Robert Brigham, VP of hotel operations. “Everything about the IP is upgraded from the pre-Katrina facility, and our Four-Diamond rating means we are attracting a higher-rated type of guest. With the help of a new revenue management system, our ADR is up 300% and we are running very high occupancies.” Brigham explained that prior to the IP’s upgrade and new casino revenue management technology, it frequently packed rooms with sports groups and convention business that did not bring revenue to the gaming floor. “Now we use the revolutionSMÂ [revenue management software (RM) system from The Rainmaker Group to optimize the room rate for each guest and group based on their value to all areas of the enterprise, including the casino.”
Brigham’s team maximizes IP’s profitability by leveraging the revolution system’s ability to accurately estimate the total property profitability of each guest segment by analyzing player gaming information and other data to set rates that are attractive to the most valuable segments. The system’s rate recommendations are based on historical gaming performance and include forecasted additional revenue from dining, spa and other sources.
Convention business is a booming market along the Gulf as the region continues its renaissance. “Our meeting space totals about 20,000 square feet and it is in high demand,” explained Brigham. “To ensure we accept the most valuable groups, we run every potential piece of business through a profitability analysis in Rainmaker’s group module to forecast its theoretical revenue contribution to the company. I personally approve every group we accept to maintain our standards.” Other property departments also use the Rainmaker group forecasts to set appropriate staffing levels.
The IP Casino Resort Spa is continuing to upgrade and currently expanding two of its large penthouse suites, converting one to a luxury spa massage facility. The resort’s cinema is also scheduled for a total makeover and will emerge as an elegant Asian themed restaurant. With its upscale appointments, attention to detail and Four Diamond rating it looks like good fortune will keep smiling on the beautiful IP on Biloxi Bay.
About IP Casino Resort Spa
The IP Casino Resort Spa is the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s premier one stop resort destination. Soaring 32 stories over the scenic Back Bay of Biloxi, the IP is home to over 1000 elegantly appointed hotel rooms and suites and the only restaurant in the state which takes fine dining to dramatic new heights–thirty-two, recently honored with AAA Four Diamond status as well. Guests enter IP via a marble-paneled lobby dotted with unique amenities, including Chill Ultra Lounge, the IP Infusion coffee bar, Essentials gift shop and the fantastic Brazilian restaurant, Carnaval de Brasil. Three high-energy casino floors feature a 70, 000 square foot gaming area with the newest most exciting slot games, 20X odds-on craps as well as other favorite table games, and a state-of-the-art non-smoking poker room and poker-bars on each floor. The Royal Halls provide an ideal meeting space for groups up to 1000. IP’s tantalizing Back Bay Buffet features the freshest seafood and Southern classics, along with an array of international food stations. The Highlights Sports Lounge has over 65 plasma screens so guests can catch their favorite game. High Tide Café is IP’s 24-hour full service restaurant. Quench restaurant offers fabulous food and drink while guests hang by the pool, and then becomes Q After Dark with entertainment under the stars.
It was a record-breaking year for the Coast casinos, when Hard Rock Casino opened two years later than expected, Jimmy Buffett brought Margaritaville to Biloxi, Emeril kicked it up a notch in Gulfport and new projects were measured “with a B.”
Billions have been invested in Coast casinos since the storm. The goal for this year’s state gross gaming revenue is $3 billion, and a billion-dollar casino is proposed in Biloxi that will test the 800-foot rule for onshore gambling.
At the Southern Gaming Summit in May, Gov. Haley Barbour said he doesn’t want gambling to expand beyond the current seven counties. That statement didn’t stop opponents of a proposed Choctaw casino in Jackson County from worrying when Beasley Denson was elected the new Choctaw chief in July. Denson said he would look to the will of the tribe rather than this November’s non-binding referendum in Jackson County to determine if the Choctaws will pursue a Coast casino.
When the Isle of Capri celebrated the 15th anniversary of casinos in August, Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway said the state far surpassed the original projections of six casino boats and $10 million in revenue for the state.
“We don’t have paddlewheelers. Nor do we have casinos. We have casino resorts. We have a multibillion-dollar industry.”
Casinos contributed more than $800 million in tax revenue to the state and cities in 15 years and Holloway said, “I hate to think where we would be today in this post-Katrina world were it not for the revenue and jobs created by this industry.”
Larry Gregory, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission for the past 12 years, thinks of the casinos as children he has watched grow. The state has evolved to one of the top 10 gambling markets in the country, and he’s expecting more casinos to come.
Biloxi growth
Casinos have driven the Coast’s post-Katrina economy, especially in Biloxi. Every casino in the city expanded or updated, and Hard Rock Casino, two days from opening when Katrina hit, finally got its debut.
Competition was keen for celebrity partnerships, promotions and expansions, yet cooperation among the casinos brought people back to work and moved the Coast to recovery. Players rewarded the casinos with record earnings.
Harrah’s Entertainment and singer Jimmy Buffett are partnering to build Margaritaville, with construction to begin in August. Bacaran Bay plans to break ground before the end of 2007 and summer 2008 is the target for groundbreaking at Bayview Casino Resort next to Boomtown on the Back Bay. The Broadwater property has more than 200 acres to develop and spokesman Mark Calvert said they are looking for the right joint venture or sale. A $1 billion casino is proposed on the site of the old Tivoli Hotel, but that location faces rezoning by the Biloxi City Council and having the property declared a suitable site by the Mississippi Gaming Commission.
 Source: Sun Herald
There’s nothing new or surprising about would-be developers trying to push the envelope on where casinos can be built on the Coast – it’s been done for years, by everyone from Donald Trump to no-name schemers who didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
These efforts have often gotten enmeshed in local politics and litigation and many, eventually, failed. Luckily for the burgeoning industry, these squabbles didn’t draw in the state legislature, which has an uneasy relationship with legalized gambling.
That may change, if a current effort pushes onward. And, mark my words, further involvement by the Mississippi Legislature on where casinos can and cannot go will not be good for the future of casino development on the Coast.
Now, the potential of having legalized gambling abolished in Mississippi is negligible, though probably not out of the realm of possibility. But a moratorium on any new development? That, my friends, could pass in our legislature. It could pass by a three-fifths vote given the right circumstances.
The latest effort is to have the old Tivoli Hotel site in Biloxi deemed suitable for a casino, by sort of loosening up the legislature’s 2005 Katrina-relief law that allowed casinos to come onshore, only by 800 feet, to help the industry fortify against future storms.
Plain and simple, proponents of the Tivoli project are trying to fudge the legislative intent of the onshore gambling bill. Anyone who tells you otherwise is misinformed or disingenuous.
I was there through all the debate on the bill, and I was there when it passed. Lawmakers intended the 800 feet to be measured from the water, the mean high water line, and they intended for such developments to include private property that touches the waters of the Mississippi Sound.
In short, lawmakers did not intend for the onshore bill to open up inland areas for casinos. They intended it only to allow casinos to move a short distance onto land so they could build hurricane-resistant structures.
Passage of the onshore gambling bill was an act of goodwill toward the Coast, which was reeling from Katrina and needed the casino industry to build back.
Many inland lawmakers, knowing they would catch heat from their anti-gambling constituents, listened to pleas from Coast lawmakers and business leaders and, despite misgivings, approved the bill.
During the intense negotiations on the bill, the word moratorium came up numerous times, and was presented at least once as an amendment. And many lawmakers were given promises that the bill would not do what some are now trying to make it do.
While the thought of a moratorium on new development sends shudders up the spines of many Coast business and political leaders, many inland lawmakers wouldn’t flinch at all before voting one in.
Especially if they felt someone were trying to take advantage of their act of kindness and political bravery.
Source: Sun Herald
