I live here in AZ and can pretty much stay free in Vegas for the next half year with all the deals I have received. Both via email and snail mail.
I dont really even gamble much at the tables or slots either. 90% of my action is in the sportsbooks. All it took was signing up for the various players club cards...
By her own admission, Susie Kirkland has no business being here. No business drinking spiked slushies on the Spanish Steps at Caesars Palace or playing craps at Harrah's Las Vegas.
The 27-year-old Scottsdale engineer took a couple of trips during the holidays and has more on tap for this year. A Vegas trip in mid-January wasn't in the budget.
Until she received an e-mail offer of two complimentary nights from Harrah's, good even on a holiday weekend. <SCRIPT type=text/javascript>OAS_AD('ArticleFlex_1')</SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://gannett.gcion.com/addyn/3.0/5111.1/133600/0/0/ADTECH;alias=azcentral.com/money/articles_ArticleFlex_1;cookie=info;loc=100;target=_blank;grp=296232;misc=1234135714022" text="text/javascript"></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://www.adfusion.com/Adfusion.PartnerSite/71c81aaa-60ae-4b3e-bad7-ef88f1cbeaf8.aspx"></SCRIPT><STYLE type=text/css> /*--- Imported Refresh Styles --*/ #ARACreativeContainer * {position: static; white-space: normal;text-align: left;vertical-align: baseline;line-height: normal;font-weight: normal;font-family: inherit;font-style: normal;font-size: 100%;list-style: inherit;border: 0px none;outline: 0px;padding: 0px;margin: 0px;} </STYLE><STYLE> /*Creative Styles*/ #ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd { width: 292px; height: 195px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; background-image: none; border: none; color: #000000; } #ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd td { text-align: center; vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 10pt; font-size: 9pt; margin: 3px; padding: 2px; } #ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd a { text-decoration: none; } #ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd img { position: relative; position: static; /*left: 0; top: 0;*/ padding: 0px; margin: 0px; } </STYLE><TABLE id=ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 75px">
</TD><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">How to Destroy Acne Without Destroying Your Skin</TD></TR><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 75px">
</TD><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">Sex Pheromones are Bending the Laws of Attraction</TD></TR><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 75px">
</TD><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">The Secret to Getting Highly Discounted Cruise Tickets</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
"I was, like, it's free; we have to go," Kirkland said.
Las Vegas casino hotels, hoping to fill their growing roster of empty rooms, restaurants, spas and shows, are serving up a buffet of bargains and freebies to lure customers in a recession. A recession that is almost already twice as long as the last one, in 2001, in a city with more than 14,000 more rooms to sell each night than it had eight years ago.
Low rollers are getting a rare taste of the Las Vegas high-roller life, checking into the luxury Bellagio for a fraction of the usual cost or snagging free rooms at other hotels on their pick of dates and places.
Hilton-like prices are available on select dates at the luxury Wynn and Palazzo resorts. Motel 6-like rates are offered at places from [COLOR=#2573c2! important][COLOR=#2573c2! important]New [COLOR=#2573c2! important]York[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] New York to Treasure Island. The hotels tout the specials on their Web sites, and sites such as www.vegashotelspecial.com offer a roundup.
Club members get offers
The best deals on the table are showing up in the mailboxes and inboxes of the millions of members of Strip casinos' "players" clubs. Like grocery or bookstore loyalty cards, the players' clubs are free, and membership enters you into a giant marketing database. Casino hotels tap them regularly in good times and bad, sending offers via e-mail and the U.S. Postal Service.
Today, the offers are showing up more frequently than ever, are more generous and are widely available.
Casinos are showering members with free or sharply discounted rooms, credits for food and drinks, 2-for-1 spa admission, show tickets and other perks. Some of the offers can be redeemed twice in a short period.
Arizonans, who account for nearly 1 in 10 visitors to Las Vegas, are prime targets. New York New York last week sent out a "Staycation" deal that was available only to residents of Arizona, California and [COLOR=#2573c2! important][COLOR=#2573c2! important]Nevada[/COLOR][/COLOR].
Many of the members wouldn't have been on the casinos' radar for such sweet deals in the past except during the rare slow period in Las Vegas. Now, the calendar is awash in slow periods.
Gambling analyst Joel Simkins calls it a casino war. He said the balance of power has noticeably shifted from casino owners to customers.
"If you have a pulse right now and you're willing to gamble a couple hundred bucks, you're going to be treated well," Simkins, of Macquarie Research in New York, said.
He belongs to the major players-card programs to track promotions, and he visits Las Vegas regularly for research.
Simkins said he doesn't gamble much yet has seen his offers get more lucrative, with few strings attached.
"Right now, they're giving away rooms to someone like me."
Shaky outlook
Tourism is the lifeblood of southern Nevada's economy. Hotels account for nearly 20 percent of the region's jobs. Add in businesses that support or depend on hotels, and the figure jumps to 25 percent of the workforce, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Filling those hotel rooms is a priority. The generous offers appear to be helping.
Through November, year-to-date hotel occupancy across the city was down just 3.9 percentage points despite a 3 percent increase in supply. By comparison, the greater Phoenix market, which also has added a big supply of new rooms, fared worse, with occupancy down 7.4 percentage points through November.
Las Vegas' trend line isn't promising, however. The hotel occupancy rate fell more than 7 percentage points in September, October and November, according to the visitors bureau. The decline in average daily room rates and in airport passenger counts also accelerated as fall hit.
November visitor volume fell nearly 10 percent from the same month a year ago, according to the visitors bureau. Gaming revenue is down about 16 percent.
Simkins said the numbers likely mean that cheaper rates and much more discounting will be part of the landscape for a while. "It's survival mode right now in Las Vegas."
Steve Zanella, vice president of slot operations and entertainment for MGM Grand, the largest strip hotel with more than 5,000 rooms, said it's unclear where business is headed this year.
He has been in the industry for 17 years and said he has never seen things this bad. The city took a severe hit after 9/11, which occurred near the end of the last recession, and responded with specials. But they didn't last long.
With corporate layoffs announced daily and few signs that a recovery is right around the corner, might the offers get even better?
"I guess, potentially, but they're pretty good now," Zanella said.
Casino hotels such as MGM have to be aggressive but disciplined in an economic environment in which bookings are erratic and increasingly last- minute, Zanella said.
"You just can't open up all the floodgates and panic," he said.
Besides leaving money on the table, one risk of the flurry of generous offers is overkill.
Simkins worries Las Vegas visitors may be permanently spoiled.
"When the tide turns around, people are going to be so trained to look for these discounts that it's going to be a little more difficult to raise prices."
'Money to play with'
Kirkland, the Scottsdale engineer, said the best deals she received in the past from Harrah's Total Rewards program and other casinos' programs were for discounted room rates, and rarely on the weekends. She visits Las Vegas three or four times a year, and her gambling budget is little more than $150 a day.
Now, she is not only receiving free rooms at Harrah's but cut-rate weekend offers from top-of-the-line Strip destinations like Wynn. For last month's weekend trip, she briefly considered giving up the Harrah's deal for a $149 special at Wynn.
"The Wynn is really pretty much out of our budget," she said. "It was kind of hard not to want to cancel my free room and try out the Wynn."
A calculated gamble
Casinos are betting on people like Kirkland to take a trip they otherwise wouldn't take or to trade up and get a taste of luxury that might be hard to resist on a future trip.
"They're hoping you will come and gamble more than you got for free and also that you'll spend money on other things: the restaurants, other shows," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. "It's probably the best reaction to the situation."
Minneapolis resident Brad Bergeson, who stayed in a free room at the Flamingo Hilton one weekend last month, something his group didn't get on last year's trip to Vegas, is more blunt.
"We just have more money to play with, to blow," he said.
I dont really even gamble much at the tables or slots either. 90% of my action is in the sportsbooks. All it took was signing up for the various players club cards...
By her own admission, Susie Kirkland has no business being here. No business drinking spiked slushies on the Spanish Steps at Caesars Palace or playing craps at Harrah's Las Vegas.
The 27-year-old Scottsdale engineer took a couple of trips during the holidays and has more on tap for this year. A Vegas trip in mid-January wasn't in the budget.
Until she received an e-mail offer of two complimentary nights from Harrah's, good even on a holiday weekend. <SCRIPT type=text/javascript>OAS_AD('ArticleFlex_1')</SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://gannett.gcion.com/addyn/3.0/5111.1/133600/0/0/ADTECH;alias=azcentral.com/money/articles_ArticleFlex_1;cookie=info;loc=100;target=_blank;grp=296232;misc=1234135714022" text="text/javascript"></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://www.adfusion.com/Adfusion.PartnerSite/71c81aaa-60ae-4b3e-bad7-ef88f1cbeaf8.aspx"></SCRIPT><STYLE type=text/css> /*--- Imported Refresh Styles --*/ #ARACreativeContainer * {position: static; white-space: normal;text-align: left;vertical-align: baseline;line-height: normal;font-weight: normal;font-family: inherit;font-style: normal;font-size: 100%;list-style: inherit;border: 0px none;outline: 0px;padding: 0px;margin: 0px;} </STYLE><STYLE> /*Creative Styles*/ #ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd { width: 292px; height: 195px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; background-image: none; border: none; color: #000000; } #ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd td { text-align: center; vertical-align: top; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 10pt; font-size: 9pt; margin: 3px; padding: 2px; } #ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd a { text-decoration: none; } #ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd img { position: relative; position: static; /*left: 0; top: 0;*/ padding: 0px; margin: 0px; } </STYLE><TABLE id=ARALifeCategoryTable_300x250WhiteStd cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 75px">
</TD><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">How to Destroy Acne Without Destroying Your Skin</TD></TR><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 75px">
</TD><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">Sex Pheromones are Bending the Laws of Attraction</TD></TR><TR><TD style="WIDTH: 75px">
</TD><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">The Secret to Getting Highly Discounted Cruise Tickets</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>"I was, like, it's free; we have to go," Kirkland said.
Las Vegas casino hotels, hoping to fill their growing roster of empty rooms, restaurants, spas and shows, are serving up a buffet of bargains and freebies to lure customers in a recession. A recession that is almost already twice as long as the last one, in 2001, in a city with more than 14,000 more rooms to sell each night than it had eight years ago.
Low rollers are getting a rare taste of the Las Vegas high-roller life, checking into the luxury Bellagio for a fraction of the usual cost or snagging free rooms at other hotels on their pick of dates and places.
Hilton-like prices are available on select dates at the luxury Wynn and Palazzo resorts. Motel 6-like rates are offered at places from [COLOR=#2573c2! important][COLOR=#2573c2! important]New [COLOR=#2573c2! important]York[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] New York to Treasure Island. The hotels tout the specials on their Web sites, and sites such as www.vegashotelspecial.com offer a roundup.
Club members get offers
The best deals on the table are showing up in the mailboxes and inboxes of the millions of members of Strip casinos' "players" clubs. Like grocery or bookstore loyalty cards, the players' clubs are free, and membership enters you into a giant marketing database. Casino hotels tap them regularly in good times and bad, sending offers via e-mail and the U.S. Postal Service.
Today, the offers are showing up more frequently than ever, are more generous and are widely available.
Casinos are showering members with free or sharply discounted rooms, credits for food and drinks, 2-for-1 spa admission, show tickets and other perks. Some of the offers can be redeemed twice in a short period.
Arizonans, who account for nearly 1 in 10 visitors to Las Vegas, are prime targets. New York New York last week sent out a "Staycation" deal that was available only to residents of Arizona, California and [COLOR=#2573c2! important][COLOR=#2573c2! important]Nevada[/COLOR][/COLOR].
Many of the members wouldn't have been on the casinos' radar for such sweet deals in the past except during the rare slow period in Las Vegas. Now, the calendar is awash in slow periods.
Gambling analyst Joel Simkins calls it a casino war. He said the balance of power has noticeably shifted from casino owners to customers.
"If you have a pulse right now and you're willing to gamble a couple hundred bucks, you're going to be treated well," Simkins, of Macquarie Research in New York, said.
He belongs to the major players-card programs to track promotions, and he visits Las Vegas regularly for research.
Simkins said he doesn't gamble much yet has seen his offers get more lucrative, with few strings attached.
"Right now, they're giving away rooms to someone like me."
Shaky outlook
Tourism is the lifeblood of southern Nevada's economy. Hotels account for nearly 20 percent of the region's jobs. Add in businesses that support or depend on hotels, and the figure jumps to 25 percent of the workforce, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Filling those hotel rooms is a priority. The generous offers appear to be helping.
Through November, year-to-date hotel occupancy across the city was down just 3.9 percentage points despite a 3 percent increase in supply. By comparison, the greater Phoenix market, which also has added a big supply of new rooms, fared worse, with occupancy down 7.4 percentage points through November.
Las Vegas' trend line isn't promising, however. The hotel occupancy rate fell more than 7 percentage points in September, October and November, according to the visitors bureau. The decline in average daily room rates and in airport passenger counts also accelerated as fall hit.
November visitor volume fell nearly 10 percent from the same month a year ago, according to the visitors bureau. Gaming revenue is down about 16 percent.
Simkins said the numbers likely mean that cheaper rates and much more discounting will be part of the landscape for a while. "It's survival mode right now in Las Vegas."
Steve Zanella, vice president of slot operations and entertainment for MGM Grand, the largest strip hotel with more than 5,000 rooms, said it's unclear where business is headed this year.
He has been in the industry for 17 years and said he has never seen things this bad. The city took a severe hit after 9/11, which occurred near the end of the last recession, and responded with specials. But they didn't last long.
With corporate layoffs announced daily and few signs that a recovery is right around the corner, might the offers get even better?
"I guess, potentially, but they're pretty good now," Zanella said.
Casino hotels such as MGM have to be aggressive but disciplined in an economic environment in which bookings are erratic and increasingly last- minute, Zanella said.
"You just can't open up all the floodgates and panic," he said.
Besides leaving money on the table, one risk of the flurry of generous offers is overkill.
Simkins worries Las Vegas visitors may be permanently spoiled.
"When the tide turns around, people are going to be so trained to look for these discounts that it's going to be a little more difficult to raise prices."
'Money to play with'
Kirkland, the Scottsdale engineer, said the best deals she received in the past from Harrah's Total Rewards program and other casinos' programs were for discounted room rates, and rarely on the weekends. She visits Las Vegas three or four times a year, and her gambling budget is little more than $150 a day.
Now, she is not only receiving free rooms at Harrah's but cut-rate weekend offers from top-of-the-line Strip destinations like Wynn. For last month's weekend trip, she briefly considered giving up the Harrah's deal for a $149 special at Wynn.
"The Wynn is really pretty much out of our budget," she said. "It was kind of hard not to want to cancel my free room and try out the Wynn."
A calculated gamble
Casinos are betting on people like Kirkland to take a trip they otherwise wouldn't take or to trade up and get a taste of luxury that might be hard to resist on a future trip.
"They're hoping you will come and gamble more than you got for free and also that you'll spend money on other things: the restaurants, other shows," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. "It's probably the best reaction to the situation."
Minneapolis resident Brad Bergeson, who stayed in a free room at the Flamingo Hilton one weekend last month, something his group didn't get on last year's trip to Vegas, is more blunt.
"We just have more money to play with, to blow," he said.
