NASHVILLE – The opening in March of the $260 million renovation and rebranding of San Diego’s Sycuan Casino to the Sycuan Casino Resort changed the demographics of the property and also brought children to the property for the first time, requiring adjustments to keep adult guests happy and gambling, a senior executive said Monday.
During a panel discussion on The Future of the Hospitality Experience on the opening day of the TribalNet conference in Nashville on Monday, Sycuan Casino Vice President of IT Patrick Tinklenberg said that when a property undergoes changes from a casino-only property to one with a resort hotel, data gathering and modeling becomes even more crucial.
The casino’s original customer base skewed toward women in the 55-to-65 age range. The property’s demographic now trends lower in age and is much closer to a 50-50 split between men and women.
“One of the things we are just now getting to, because we finally have enough data (on it) is the new class of guests coming in,” Tinklenberg said. “(Previously) we were strictly, 100 percent, gaming, and not much (food and beverage). Now we have these new amenities, a hotel, a beautiful pool complex and (several new) restaurants. It’s changed our demographic a little bit. Who should we be expecting to come in, who should we be talking to or reaching out to, what is the opportunity in those areas?”
Tinklenberg said it’s vital that properties track data to understand the profile of their customers and mold a strategy, especially when building a hotel resort.
“The first thing it changed was the length of stay,” Tinklenberg said of opening the resort. “We went from our longest stay (being) under 24 hours, eight- or 10-hour stays, to a day-and-a-half — somewhere around 36 hours. We didn’t allow anyone under 18 on property (previously), and when we opened the hotel we had kids all over the property, which changed the gaming profile in the area where we had the kids.”
Tinklenberg said long-time customers who had never been around kids on-site didn’t want to share a gambling area with them. That revealed itself because the casino had family-style restaurants that were in gaming environments where the property expected “a certain revenue model, but it didn’t happen.”
Resort management reached out to their guests and asked them why they were avoiding those areas. Executives learned that, because there was a wait of 30 minutes or so to get in the restaurant, kids who were waiting with their parents were playing around and making noise while still in areas they were required to be in, he said.
“People would vacate the space,” Tinklenberg said. “You have to keep that in mind. That’s not a technology issue, but it’s part of the hospitality experience. That might not be in your modeling, but it’s something you’ll see in your slot performance really quick.”
The casino dealt with the issue by moving some games around and allowing guests to book restaurant reservations, so that they didn’t have to stand and wait.
There were other issues, too, such as the pool becoming a “parking lot for kids.”
“What helped with (all of this) is once September came, school started,” Tinklenberg said. “That made a huge difference for us. Now we have nine months to think about (what we learned) and figure out what else we’re going to do.”
John Ormond, executive director of technology services with the Chumash Casino Resort in California, said his property dealt with the issue of kids at the pool by making their pool adults-only.
“It wasn’t (initially) popular with guests, but eventually everybody got used to it,” Ormond said. “We now designated areas where children can go. It’s sensitive because those children have parents who gamble, but we found having clear expectations helped.
“People are there to gamble and go to the pool to relax a little bit,” he said. “They don’t want to (hang out in) the parking lot for kids.”
