Tom O’Donnell is three months into his job as the new general manager of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino. In a recent interview, he shared his thoughts on the casino industry and the future of the Cherokee casino. But first, a bit about his background.

O’Donnell has been in the casino industry for 25 years and has worked for both tribal casinos and non-tribal casinos. Most recently, O’Donnell was living in Charleston and commuting to Las Vegas as a consultant for Harrah’s. He was part of the transition team bringing a Caesar’s casino under Harrah’s management following a merger of the two companies.

He spent four years in the mid-1990s as the general manager and then chief operating officer of the Oneida Indian Nation gaming enterprise. He spent three years as the senior vice president of the Harrah’s Joliet casino in Illinois. In 2000, he became the senior vice president and general manager of Harrah’s Showboat Hotel Casino in Atlantic City.

In 2003, he retired and moved to Charleston where he was teaching a hospitality management course at the College of Charleston. Harrah’s asked him to come back to work as a consultant on the Caesar’s merger. O’Donnell was in the midst of the merger project when Harrah’s offered him the general manager position at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino.

SMN: Why did you decide to come back to work fulltime after retiring from the business?

O’Donnell: I accepted because I enjoyed working in tribal gaming previously and I knew, obviously, that this is a very successful operation. It was four hours from Charleston, so the stars all aligned quite nicely. Having the opportunity to be a general manager was very exciting. My wife and I both love the mountains. This is just a beautiful area.

SMN: How does working for a tribal gaming operation differ from casinos in Atlantic City or Las Vegas?

O’Donnell: The most significant difference is where the profits go and what they support. That is the biggest difference. For tribal gaming, you are ultimately making money for the tribe to continue to develop and enhance and become self-sufficient and provide opportunities for tribal members.

The shareholder is very different here. The shareholder is the Cherokee people, and that is the very fulfilling and rewarding part of this job and what intrigued me about the position.

SMN: What is the business arrangement between Harrah’s and the tribe?

O’Donnell: The casino is owned by the tribe. Harrah’s is paid to manage it. I am the Harrah’s representative on site. I report to a board of directors that are tribal members. All other employees are tribal employees. I am the only Harrah’s employee.

SMN: What’s the economic benefit of the casino, not just in Cherokee, but in surrounding communities?

O’Donnell: There are two ways we have a direct benefit: wages and the amount of purchases we make from suppliers and vendors in the surrounding counties.

We make about 27 percent of purchases from surrounding area (excluding the Qualla Boundary, which accounts for 48 percent of the purchase of goods and services). Even things like the specialty items. I ran into a guy at the Haywood Chamber meeting who made gift baskets for our VIP customers.

As far as wages, we have an average salary of $49,000 a year. We are one of the largest single employers for Haywood, Jackson and Swain counties, even though we’re not physically located in those counties. I don’t know what the multiplier is of those salaries and wages.

The tribe is also extremely generous to surrounding communities from a charitable standpoint.

SMN: Do you think the region recognizes the value of the casino as an economic engine and its charitable donations?

O’Donnell: The feedback I get from community people is that, yes, most do recognize the value of the casino being here as an employer and a good community partner. We consider ourselves to be a valued partner in the region.

When you’re a big employer, your revenues are very solid, people expect it. I think the difference is when a casino does it because they have to, or whether they truly do it for the betterment of the community. It’s Harrahs philosophy, but also the Cherokee philosophy, to be good community neighbors. Having worked here over the past three months, that’s been very rewarding and fulfilling to experience that.

SMN: What is your biggest challenge in taking this job?

O’Donnell: The biggest challenge is to continue to enhance an already very successful operation. In my time working with Harrah’s, I was typically sent to properties that were experiencing declining results and/or struggling. Now I’ve had the opportunity to come to one of the properties that is already very successful, so the challenge is the continued enhancement of that.

SMN: The second hotel tower of 331 rooms is opening this month. Is that to meet current or anticipated demand?

O’Donnell: That will pretty much service existing demand. Based on our rate of denials over the last few years, we are pretty confident the new tower services current demand. There may be mid-week vacancies, but primarily it is to meet existing casino demand.

SMN: Do most casino guests travel here specifically to visit the casino, or is it one component of a vacation to the mountains in general?

O’Donnell: I think we get a little bit of both. We get folks that come here for the pure experience of the gaming and the entertainment associated with that, and we also get folks that come and stay a little bit longer and visit downtown Cherokee and the museum and the national park. What percentage that is, we don’t know that specifically.

But right now, I think the majority of the people who visit here come here with the casino being their first choice of things to do. While they are here they choose do to other things, like learning about Cherokee culture. We know the museum is very well attended.

While I think the casino itself is the magnet or incentive right now, research on future gamers indicate there is more interest in other things around the casino itself.

SMN: Are there enough other things to do in the surrounding area to keep guests occupied while not involved in casino activities?

O’Donnell: I think there is a lot of stuff for the ecotourist to do with the national park right here. The outdoors is an experience itself and has a lot to offer. For a casino itself, we are looking at a long-range master plan of the gaming operation.

SMN: What is the vision for the master plan?

O’Donnell: It’s more than what the vision is, it’s what the real opportunity is. We want to position Harrah’s Cherokee as a regional resort destination. That means providing our own set of additional amenities, as well at the same time embracing the local attractions as a combined resort experience.

Seventy-seven million baby boomers will be retiring in the next 10 years that are projected to be the most active and affluent retirees ever. Understanding the attractions and amenities that attract them is very important. So we are studying how we can understand that and fit that into our business.

In order to continue to provide growth and opportunity we need to expand our business offerings. What specifically that may be is what is under study with part of our master plan process as we try to determine what is the best use of capital for the tribe.

The tribe is entertaining the thoughts and recommendations from the business side of how we can position Harrahs Cherokee in the future.

The profits ultimately go back to the tribe. It’s only in their best interest to continue to grow our business.

SMN: Do you think the state of North Carolina will open the door for Harrahs to have live dealers?

O’Donnell: We have live dealers. We’re just not dealing real cards. We have live dealers that operate a digital gaming device.

The perception is ‘real-cards’ card games, or games like roulette, would be a real benefit to us. I try to manage our business and try to communicate to our team: let’s focus on what we can control right now with what we have. What we have is digital 21 or blackjack, and a digital video crap game or dice game, and those games perform very well.

SMN: What type of marketing does Harrah’s do?

O’Donnell: Our primary marketing strategy is through direct mail advertising to our guests and high level of personal relations for our best customers. Both of those are supported by some pretty sophisticated database management, which is one of the big advantages the tribe receives from being affiliated with Harrah’s, because Harrah’s is probably one of the most sophisticated at direct mail database management.

While our primary marketing strategy is focused on our existing customers, you are always out prospecting new business as well.

SMN: High rollers could fly to any casino in the country they wanted for the weekend. What draws some of those VIPs to Harrah’s Cherokee?

O’Donnell: We pride ourselves on having extensive service initiatives. Every casino in operation has customers that rank at the top. We are here to service the needs of our best customers, which is what our casino hosts do. Not all of our customers have access to our casino hosts.

And again, our marketing and database capabilities allow us to understand the needs and wants of customers, and delivering on those wants and needs probably better than most.

As things get more competitive and gaming attitudes change, that ties in to the master plan, understanding what the next generation of customers is going to want and need is going to be important. There’s an indication that people aren’t going to want strictly a gaming experience, but other amenities in and around the gaming experience.

SMN: What’s new at Harrah’s?

O’Donnell: In addition to the long-awaited opening of a second hotel tower, Harrah’s Cherokee Casino has launched two additions to its gaming operations this summer.

Harrah’s launched a Vegas rules version of blackjack on May 28. The new Vegas rules blackjack was advertised in core markets, including a television commercial featuring fast-paced images of people having a blast playing the new Vegas rules blackjack, timing the introduction of the new game for Memorial Day weekend.

Harrah’s built a poker room based on the hope that the state would approve a regulated form of poker. However, poker was not approved, so the room was instead used to create additional non-smoking gaming floor space.

That was a complaint that we were hearing from our non-smoking customers was the level of smoke particularly during busy times. In response to those comments and being sensitive to our customers needs, we are converting our poker room to a 254 slot room nonsmoking area.