US. Las Vegas McCarran International Airport yesterday opened its long-awaited new Terminal 3, highlighted by The Nuance Group/Las Vegas’s main 10,403sq ft (966sq m) duty free store which is claimed to be the largest in the US.
The Moodie Report was on location at McCarran International as the inaugural international flight, Virgin Airways from London Gatwick Airport, landed to be greeted by the traditional water canon salute.
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Passengers off the inaugural Virgin Atlantic flight into Terminal 3 were greeted in trademark Las Vegas style |
The US$2.4 billion T3 is a 1.9 million sq ft, three-storey linear building. It is opening in three phases, beginning with international traffic from yesterday.
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Clark County Aviation and The Nuance Group/Las Vegas executives cut the ribbon to inaugurate the new-look T3 store |
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The dual open frontage draws passengers into Nuance’s new Terminal 3 store |
T3 features a big increase in international gates and a major improvement in retail and food & beverage facilities. The Moodie Report has been exclusively tracking the development of Nuance’s ambitious retail offer, culminating with a special e-Zine next week dedicated to the project, featuring audio, video and picture gallery coverage.
Nuance, the long-term incumbent, was awarded a new 15-year concession at McCarran in November 2010. Its contract includes 11,085sq ft (1,030sq m) of retail space in T3, led by the main international store.
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Celebrating a red-letter day for The Nuance Group in North America as Terminal 3 opens for business: (Left to right) Andrew Rattner, Vice President Buying and Operations; Gary Cavanagh, Chief Financial Officer; Richard Rendek, Chief Executive Officer; and John Menchella, Senior Vice President Business Development |
Speaking after the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the store, The Nuance Group North America CEO Richard Rendek told The Moodie Report: “While it’s vastly different from what we’ve done here in Las Vegas before, it’s also different from anything we’ve ever done in this region.
“We wanted to bring retail to a different level and we think we’ve done that here. This will be our base model for the quality of our offering going forward.” [A full interview with Richard Rendek will appear in next week’s e-Zine special edition].
Clark County Director of Aviation Randall H. Walker told The Moodie Report: “Building this terminal really afforded us the opportunity to develop first-class arrival and departure facilities. It gives us the opportunity to provide much better concession facilities, everywhere from duty free to the restaurants.”
Commenting on the extensive duty free offer, Walker said: “They’ve always been undersized over in Terminal 2, relative to our traffic. This gives them the opportunity to size it better for the customer demand and provide a lot more products that they weren’t able to provide over there.
“And with the change in the laws here that allows duty paid to be sold out of the same store – the only difference is that if you don’t have an international boarding pass you can buy anything but the alcohol and the cigarettes, and you just pay the taxes [on non-liquor/tobacco items] – that gives them an opportunity to reach out to the domestic passenger as well.
“So between being undersized before and now being able to reach out to the domestic passenger (for the lion’s share of their product), it’s going to give them a great opportunity to be successful in that beautiful store – they did a first-class job.”
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The main store is highlighted by a 600sq ft (56sq m) Victoria’s Secret shop-in-shop |
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Susan Brager, Chair of Clark County Commission, which controls the airport, told The Moodie Report: “Las Vegas is an incredible destination and we want people from the moment they get off the plane to the moment they get back on the plane to have a very good experience. So the airport, with this new Terminal 3, is a phenomenal place”¦ it’s extraordinary with the duty free, the other shops and the restaurants.
“We encourage your readers to know that Las Vegas is a destination next to none and the airport is next to none.”
Nick Baker, Director of Smart Design, which managed the retail design for Nuance, said: “We wanted to bring attention to the entire space. It was a fairly deep space and we had a number of brands which Nuance really wanted to engage with. So we wanted to open up as much of the frontage as we possibly could. And secondly we wanted to give some sense of glamour to the space – this is Vegas after all. But it’s tasteful glamour.”
Look out for the full interviews with Nick Baker, Nuance executives and airport officials in next week’s special edition of The Moodie Report e-Zine.
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Jack Daniel’s greets passengers with a vibrant promotional and tastings campaign, both in-store and on the concourse |
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MAC is one of several big-name beauty brands that underpin Nuance’s much-improved T3 P&C proposition |
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The liquor offer is highlighted by an upscale, educational single malt whisky and Cognac area |
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