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Gostelow Report: Military precision, personal touch at Bellagio

“I run the 3,933-room Bellagio Las Vegas in the same way as my former hotel, Ritz-Carlton Boston, which only has 193 rooms, although walking the floors takes considerably longer,” says Olivia Brown, general manager of MGM Resorts’ icon on The Strip.

This is a hotel with numbers that beggar belief. As well as what is invariably a nearly full house, with typical stay of 3.5 nights, every day between 15,000 and 30,000 non-resident tourists come in to admire the décor, patronize 26 restaurants and bars, shop – and, 24 hours a day, to gamble. She heads a team of 8,200, which includes a housekeeping department of 1,051, and overall turnover is 10%. The life is full of theater, with the added excitement of at least four major events a year, all of which require military planning.

“Each major event is a partnership with the client, and the general in charge is my executive director of conference services. He owns the relationship, year-round, and any intelligence, in the form of knowledge or suggestions, is relayed to him. After the event is over, he holds a wrapping-up with the client and then there is an internal review how to do it better next year,” she explained.

Olivia Brown in one of Bellagio's delicatessens
Olivia Brown in one of Bellagio’s delicatessens

Departments are motivated before an event starts, and while it takes place everyone – housekeeping, sales and of course F&B – is working to a well-tested plan. There are special lunches every day in the staff restaurant, which all management attend. And then, of course, there are an event’s galas.

“During the leading travel agents’ convention, Virtuoso Travel Week, which takes place every August, we have 6,000 delegates in bedrooms here at Bellagio and two adjacent MGM properties, Aria and Vdara, and we also host their three major galas, attended by just under 3,000 guests each,” she shared.

This really stretches military organization. The team has three hours to turn a ballroom from conference set-up to Vegas-style theatrical dining. Every team has to be exactly in sync, working in the correct order as tables are placed and dressed, floral displays and audio visuals put in place and tested. “One night last August was circus-themed, with several in-room performances simultaneously and a stage backcloth that showed virtual animals as if on a rotonde,” she said.

Every year clients of annual events want even more elaborate entertainment (one of Virtuoso’s 2017 dinners had three complete Vegas shows, one before dinner, one as mid-meal entre-acte, and one as finale). Miraculously, food always seems to be cooked to perfection, for every diner, and each gala finishes exactly on schedule, as do one-off evenings that the hotel holds for American and Chinese New Years.

Brown, born in Jamaica and brought up in Canada, wanted to model but she was too short, so after qualifying as an accountant CPA she worked in the Atlanta headquarters of InterContinental Hotels Group. There, she was enticed to the company’s two-year GM course. Ritz-Carlton stole her away, and later Randy Morton, president of Bellagio and himself a former luxury lifer from Four Seasons, enticed her to Bellagio, in 2015.

“How could I turn it down? This is one of the world’s signature properties. It would not work if my business background and ease with P&L statements were not able to blend with the customer service I learned at Ritz-Carlton. Even big properties require minute attention to detail, just like a military campaign.”

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