This past Monday, MGM Resorts International announced that the Delano Las Vegas will rebrand. To me, this is great news, as the Delano Las Vegas is one of my favorite hotels there, but it has thus far been excluded from MGM’s and Marriott’s new partnership – even though that partnership is incredibly lackluster.
Today, if you go to marriott.com and search for hotels in Las Vegas, you’ll notice that the Delano Las Vegas doesn’t appear in the search results. This is also true when you look at rooms for Mandalay Bay Resort via marriott.com, which isn’t he case when you book direct with MGM Resorts International. That’s likely because of existing licensing agreements for the non-smoking, all-suite annex of the Mandalay Bay campus. However, this absence will change soon, as the Delano Las Vegas will rebrand, adopting a brand from Marriott’s portfolio.
The Delano Las Vegas Will Rebrand
This isn’t the first time the Delano Las Vegas will rebrand. Opened as THEhotel at Mandalay Bay on December 17, 2003. However, in 2012, MGM Resorts International signed a licensing agreement with Morgans Hotel Group to use their Delano brand name to rebrand THEhotel. The original Delano is the Delano South Beach in Miami, Florida. The newly renovated and rebranded Delano Las Vegas opened in September 2014.
While not mentioned in the press release, I suspect that licensing agreement has or will expire soon. Due to this, MGM Resorts International is taking the opportunity to better align the Delano Las Vegas with its new Marriott partnership by giving it a Marriott brand. Specifically, the Delano Las Vegas will become the W Las Vegas.
If that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because there was a W Las Vegas before news that the Delano Las Vegas will rebrand. It was a pre-merger Starwood property and hotel within a hotel (similar to how it will be here) at the then SLS Las Vegas. The previous incarnation of the W Las Vegas was a brief one, lasting only from 2016 to 2018. That W Hotel lasted only two years because SBE sold the SLS Las Vegas in 2018, and the new owners terminated its relationship with Starwood before reverting the entire resort’s brand identity back to the Sahara in 2019.
At any rate, there’s no official date for the new W Las Vegas’ launch, with MGM Resorts International stating that the new brand will debut in “late 2024.” Moreover, I don’t expect anything within the property to change right now. There are only two months left in the year, which is not remotely enough time to do any renovation. Plus, the press release states “additional plans for the property to be announced in the future.” So, changes are coming, but they won’t happen soon. I suspect that, as I said earlier, the current licensing agreement is probably expiring soon, so the rebrand has to happen quickly.
Final Thoughts
Again, I think it’s great that the Delano Las Vegas will rebrand as the W Las Vegas. Though I think the Marriott-MGM partnership is disappointing, have more choices within the new ecosystem is better than not. And if I’m remembering correctly, with this conversion, the only hotels within MGM’s physical properties that still won’t be part of the Marriott partnership are the NoMad Las Vegas at the Park MGM and the Four Seasons Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay.
Given how new the NoMad Las Vegas is, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I also don’t see the Four Seasons Las Vegas changing any time soon, though it would be cool if they didn’t renew whatever contract they have at the next expiration and flipped it to a St. Regis Las Vegas.