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IN BUSINESS TOURISM SUMMIT CONVENTION HALL FOR TRAVEL AND TOURISM SUMMIT A STUNNER By Richard N. Velotta senior staff writer The set-up at most general conference gatherings is always the same: a stage with a podium or a head table for panelists and rows and rows of seats for the audience. Many of the bigger gatherings have a large video screens so the speakers can be seen from the back rows, sometimes hundreds of feet away. But in hosting the Global Travel and Tourism Summit, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and the convention staff at Aria—MGM Resorts International’s showcase property at CityCenter—wanted the venue to be memorable and for delegates never to forget they were meeting on the Las Vegas Strip. So they worked with Las Vegas- based show and production designers to come up with a gathering place worthy of a global audience of 1,000 that had come to hear US Cabinet speakers, CEOs from the world’s top tourism companies and the president of Mexico. With assistance from The JGS Group, owned and managed by Julie Gilday-Shaffer, and with technical production management by Peter Emminger, Aria set up a stadium-style venue-in-the-round on 270 degrees of a circle nine rows high. The stage was a replica of the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada” sign. The design placed every delegate HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY ASKS FOR AIRPORT HELP By Richard N. Velotta senior staff writer Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano asked some of the top representatives of the world’s tourism industry for their suggestions to streamline airport security bottlenecks that discourage millions of people from traveling. Napolitano, speaking in Las Vegas at GLOBE TROTTERS: More than a 1,000 guests from 65 countries attended the 2011 Travel and Tourism Summit at the Aria Resort and Casino. within 60 feet of the center of the stage. Every seat had a view of at least one of the 12-by-23-foot, high-definition projection screens that showed the speakers and special video presentations. Between the video screens were two 10-by-100-foot Las Vegas skyline murals depicting most of the city’s resort properties. At the ends of the projection screens were two more 11-by-45-foot projection surfaces that carried icons depicting the theme of the talk or panel. Panelists were parked on mood-lit, white, contemporary swivel lounge chairs while keynoters stood behind the panelists’ seats at an elevated podium. Overhead, between stage lights, was a diamond-shaped acoustic panel on which the LVCVA’s Las Vegas logo was projected. There was a touch of the United Nations at each seat. Attendees were issued smart phone-sized MP3 players and headphones so they could listen to presentations in Japanese, Mandarin or English. There were only a few technical glitches. During the first presentation by a Mandarin speaker, no one explained how to unlock the channel settings on the MP3 players. It didn’t matter. Everybody was dazzled by the sight of the Venetian, the Wynn, Luxor and the Rio on the wall. the Global Travel and Tourism Summit at Aria, said the challenge of protecting the millions of passengers who board airliners daily is that new technology to detect explosives, poisons and other toxic materials not only have to be efficient, but scalable to move people past airport security quickly. “We’re moving away from the one-size-fits-all security model,” Napolitano said at the last day of the event that brought about 1,000 people to hear top government and business leaders discuss tourism issues. Napolitano said some of the long- term solutions to streamlining security is to further develop trusted traveler programs like “Global Entry,” a screening process for frequent fliers that would expedite security checks on the day of travel. She said the US has established a TOURISM CABINET POST HAS ‘A NICE RING’ TO IT By Richard N. Velotta senior staff writer Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, admitted that “secretary of tourism” has a nice ring to it. Jarrett said one thing she will take away from this week’s Global Travel and Tourism Summit at Aria is that the US tourism industry is a significant enough economic engine that it could warrant a Cabinet-level position. “That sounds like a job I’d like to have,” Jarrett mused during a question-and-answer session after her address to the conference, one of the most significant industry gatherings ever staged in Las Vegas. Jarrett made a case for the industry’s | 23 MAY 2011 | JARRETT level of importance in her address. Referring to tourism as an important American export, she noted that the industry is important to the nation’s economic recovery from the Great Recession and that a healthy tourism industry would create numerous new jobs that would help solve the nation’s unemployment problems. She referenced Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s comments earlier today supporting development of “roadways, railways and runways” and how that infrastructure would create jobs and develop travel conduits. Jarrett also said the Obama administration supports tourism as a means to break down cultural barriers with other countries. Born in Iran, Jarrett said her life was shaped by her frequent travels throughout Europe, Africa and all over the Middle East when she was growing up. She added that President Obama, who spent some of his youth living in Indonesia, had similar experiences. standard for information needed to register a trusted traveler and has reached agreements with Canada, Mexico and the Netherlands to include international travelers from those selected countries. Nearly one million travelers from those countries and the United States are registered for Global Entry and she hopes to double that by next year. She said the Transportation Security Administration is testing a recognition- based system to positively identify airline pilots, a system that could be expanded if successful. The secretary of what is now the federal government’s third-largest agency said the biggest issue to passengers is “divestiture” – the process of removing coats, shoes and belt buckles at the security checkpoint. Napolitano said the agency is working on a solution to the problem of passengers having to remove their shoes at checkpoints. 17 CHRISTOPHER DEVARGAS