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What Auto Retail Can Learn From Casinos About Guest Experience · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  Welcome to Auto Collapse. You're listening to an exclusive series recorded live at Automobility LA 2025 in partnership with Cars Commerce. Okay, we're back here at the LA Auto Show.
• 0:11
  We're here with our brand-new friend, and I can already tell this is [laughs] gonna be a riot. Sal Ceri, chief operating officer of Aguas Calientes Casinos. That's right. Casinos plural. You just did a mouthful.
• 0:20
  That was amazing. [laughs] You- I'm a professional. I am a professional, Kyle. I mean, we have how many? 2,000 episodes in the can at this point. We got a couple under our belt, yeah.
• 0:27
  If I can't handle Sal, then what am I even doing? Then we got a different problem. [laughs] We, we do. Totally. Um, what is a casino company doing at the LA Auto Show? What a great question. Thank you.
• 0:36
  What the heck are we doing here? I'm a professional. That's... I, I can tell. [laughs] I can tell. You know, it's, it's so great to be here. We're so excited. Um, you know, people always say, "Well, why, what...
• 0:45
  You know, there's gaming, there's cars." Well, first and foremost, the idea of cars, and especially new cars, exotic cars, that speaks directly to a lot of our customers, right?
• 0:55
  And I'm not talking about just our top customer, I'm talking about all of our customers. They're all interested in cars. Why? Well, I'll tell you one example. You see casinos give away cars all the time, right? Yeah.
• 1:05
  Why is that? Our customers love cars. And we'll... You see every kind of car there is out there they give away, from, you know, the little, little Fiats all the way up to Rolls-Royces. So we, we run the gamut.
• 1:16
  Um, and, and so we, we like to be here. We like to be a part of it. We wanna learn more about what's coming up in '26 for, for us to give away.
• 1:24
  We wanna meet and mingle with our customers and our potential customers, and we really wanna showcase a lot about Agua Caliente and how, you know, we kind of bring that luxury of those exotics and those new cars to our experience at the casino.
• 1:40
  Now, f- one, one thing I will say, we got to walk in to where you are activating inside the show, and you've found a couple pretty impressive cars to have alongside of your activation. Like a one-of-one Ferrari?
• 1:52
  [laughs] Like the one-of-one Ferrari. That, that might have to come home with me. [laughs] So that's amazing. Amazing, yeah.
• 1:58
  The, the thing that we're really interested in chatting with you about, because, um, whether you're in retail or restaurants or casinos, hospitality is a word right now that anybody can adopt as a guiding principle.
• 2:10
  When you think about hospitality as it relates to what you're doing in the casino, where are you really leaning in right now? You know, that's a, that's a great question.
• 2:17
  You know, obviously casinos have been around a long time. I've been doing this for a long time, decades, believe it or not.
• 2:24
  Um, and you know, we've evolved from being just pure hospitality or pure customer service to really about guest experience. And everybody's like, "Oh, well, everybody's saying guest experience.
• 2:35
  Well, what does that really mean?" Right, right. Well, I'll tell you what that means. You have to wrap all those things in with a lot of other things, too.
• 2:43
  All the sensory experiences, you know, sight, sound, touch, taste, and you bring that together with customer service, with aesthetics, how the places look. You bring that all together, that's the new hospitality. Mm.
• 2:55
  Now, people throw around these words like they're buzzwords, and it doesn't really mean a lot. They don't know how to execute on them. You guys, you're talking about it every day. We're doing it, right?
• 3:04
  That's, that's the whole thing. We're taking those concepts, those ideas that we've talked about for a long time, and we create experiences around that. What do you think is the essence of a good guest experience?
• 3:15
  Give me some descriptors. What does it mean to people? Because it's- Sure, I can, I can, I can sum it up for you like that. He's a professional. [laughs] When, when I come to you and I say, "Hey, we're...
• 3:24
  Let's go to dinner tonight. Where do you wanna go? Let's go to your favorite place. What's your favorite place?" "I wanna go to Agua Caliente Steakhouse." "Why? Why is it your favorite place?"
• 3:33
  "Oh, the steaks taste great?" "Yeah." "Do you like the music they play?" "Yeah." "Do you like the service you get?" "Yeah." "Do you like that the, the waiters know your name?" "Yeah." It just goes on and on.
• 3:42
  It's all these different components. But if you drop one, it's not as great. It cha- it changes the whole thing. Yeah, you can't just do one thing. You can't drop... Right. Yeah.
• 3:48
  You have to do it all, and you have to do it all perfectly. Because if you don't, it takes away from that experience. And for us, for our casinos... Look, there's a lot of casinos, right?
• 3:57
  There's a lot of everything in the world today, and one of the things we have to do is we have to get our customers to drive past our competition to come to us. That sounds very car dealer-like. Right?
• 4:07
  Very car dealer, yeah. Right. So, how am I gonna do that? And I... It's by providing that experience that they don't provide, and we have to work very hard at creating amazing guest experiences, and that's what we do.
• 4:18
  I mean, I, I'm- Our spa, I'm... Just, just to give you an example. Yeah, go. We have a spa. It's called Sec-H, S-E-C hyphen H-E. Sec-H Spa. It's a spa, right? Yeah. Okay, well, everybody's got a spa.
• 4:30
  There's spas all over the place. Our spa has been named the number one spa in America two years in a row. Wow. That shows you the, our dedication, our commitment to providing that guest experience.
• 4:42
  And we thank you so much for providing us and our wives three days free at the spa. Absolutely. It's the least I could do. [laughs] To get that in there, least I could do. He's also a professional.
• 4:50
  [laughs] I'm also a professional.
• 4:52
  Uh, you know, one of the things that, that we've been thinking about a lot as things like AI or big data or social media, the access to, um, the internet provides speed in our lives, is that, um, early on, luxury was like, oh, luxury is I can have someone order my food, or I can have them bring it to my door.
• 5:13
  And now luxury is ubiquitous, right? That luxury. Luxury is moving back towards slow. Yes. Right? Yes. And, and so your environment, y- I mean, if you're saying the spa is the place where luxury happens- Yeah...
• 5:27
  how do you mix this, like, fast-paced world, high visuals, like, this craziness with- Yeah... no, actually, luxury is something that is becoming slower- Right... than the speed of the world. Yeah. You're right.
• 5:39
  You're, you're... It's so true. I mean, you can, you know, go on your phone and have anything delivered to your house, and usually same day, right? Yeah. DoorDash, certainly. Even Amazon, all these other things, right?
• 5:48
  Happens same day. Worst case, next day. In our casinos, we have a lot of exciting things that happen, right? The, the action on the floor, very exciting.We go to the steakhouse.
• 5:58
  Well, it's not quite the same as a casino, but it's still pretty exciting, right?
• 6:03
  But, you know, maybe we're gonna sit back and have a nice bottle of wine, and we're gonna watch the, the server next to our table prepare our dessert and w- as it, you know, creates a, a little fire next to us.
• 6:13
  And then, yeah, maybe we're gonna go to the spa, and we're gonna have a relaxing day at the spa. And all of a sudden, I'm not just getting one treatment, but I'm relaxing there. I'm having something to eat there.
• 6:22
  I'm lying out by the pool. And all of a sudden, you stop, and you take a deep breath. Mm. And that's a lot of what we're about, and that, because now I'm giving you a reason to really love what we do. Yeah.
• 6:35
  You know, Kyle and I have been talking a lot about this, this principle of rest and how everyone is in a state of hurry- Mm-hmm... in their whole life.
• 6:41
  And what you're explaining seems like you're trying to provide people with some rest. Right. Exactly. It's, it's like, you know, we're in Palm Springs, so it's like we are an oasis. Yeah. Yeah. [laughs] Literally.
• 6:52
  [laughs] Literally. Literally. How did you get into the business? How did I get in the business? Well- [laughs]...
• 6:57
  sometime in the '80s- [laughs] I won't say which year, I, um, I took a job to help g- get through school, and I was handing out towels and chairs on the beach in Atlantic City. Wow. Yeah. You know what?
• 7:08
  I ne- I grew up in Philly- Okay... in South Jersey. Yeah. And I was like, "This doesn't sound like a Los Angeles accent to me." Nah, that's a Jersey accent there. Yeah.
• 7:14
  So you're Atlantic City, handing out towels on the beach. Yeah. Yep. And?
• 7:17
  And, and I, you know, I, I thought it would be a, a summer job, and it turned into a full-time, you know, year-round job, and I fell in love with the business because every single day was something different.
• 7:27
  And I knew I didn't wanna go work someplace where it was the same thing day in, day out.
• 7:32
  And then that evolved, right, over decades of being able to do something for our customers that was a little bit different than a, pretty much anywhere else, and that was to provide them with an escape.
• 7:44
  And, you know, escape from, from their world, escape from work, escape from all the stress and tensions they have. They come here. They gamble a little bit.
• 7:52
  They, they, maybe they win, maybe they're not, but they have a good time. They see a great show, great meal, the spa. And, and watching people when they get there, and they're all like, "Mm."
• 8:03
  And then when they leave, they're like, "Ah." Ah, yeah. And that really means something.
• 8:07
  And now, at this stage of my career, while I'm still loving doing that, but now I'm also loving the opportunity I get with my fellow team members to groom them and give them career paths, a little bit like what I had.
• 8:19
  Well, somebody must have done that for you. And so you went from, like, towel boy to COO. Yeah. And was that all homegrown throughout working your way through the system- Yeah. Absolutely...
• 8:28
  learning piece by piece by piece? Absolutely. Another very automotive story. Another similar thing to automotive. Yeah. Uh, well, Sal, it's already, it's been a pleasure getting to know you.
• 8:36
  Uh, kudos on growing the way you have through your industry. Thank you. Uh, thanks for sharing a little bit of insight into what you do. Oh, thank you for having me. This is so much fun.
• 8:42
  I mean, you know, what a, what a great time to be here. I know it's, uh, [laughs] the weather's not cooperating, but- That's okay... inside is great. The car, I got a little preview of the show. It looks amazing.
• 8:51
  There's some exciting things going on there. I mean, the, the test tracks are great. Amazing. Some, the concept cars, unbelievable. Yep. I can't wait to get back in there. Well, thank you so much. Yeah. We'll talk soon.
• 9:00
  Thank you. Okay, sounds good. [gentle music] Thank you for listening to this LA Auto Show session, brought to you by Cars Commerce.
• 9:06
  At More Than Cars, we're obsessed with uniting people around one big idea, to make retail auto an industry that people fight to join.
• 9:14
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