Las Vegas Convention Center gains World Trade Center status

The Las Vegas Convention Center has officially acquired an alter ego as the World Trade Center Las Vegas.

The Consumer Electronics Association, which annual stages the city's largest convention, purchased the license for the name from the World Trade Center Association in New York in 2009. The CEA has worked out an operating agreement with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, but the authority will not have a financial stake in the venture.

The World Trade Center designation brings with it a new sign for the front of the convention center, plus access to the market data bases the association keeps among its 320 members in 90 countries.

Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, said the primary reason for the designation is to attract more international visitors to the annual International Consumer Electronics Show it stages. This year, he expects about 20 percent of the estimated 126,000 attendees to come from outside the United States.

"When you talk about Las Vegas to the rest of the world, what they think about is entertainment, not business," Shapiro said.

He hopes the World Trade Center designation will add a patina of legitimacy when managers in other countries wonder why they should send people to Sin City.

The Consumer Electronics Association is interested in drawing more international attendance because it foresees those markets growing faster than the U.S. in upcoming years, said Shapiro.