If you’ve been paying attention at all you’ll know that the news out of Vegas hasn’t been very good lately. The recession has played havoc with the city’s fortunes, with tourism, revenue, and the general outlook all taking a nosedive. Several companies have already been forced into bankruptcy and several others are on the verge, with the future of many a major Las Vegas hotel in question.
While issues of too much debt and not enough capital for the major corporations that run most of Vegas are certainly worth noting, my opinion is that Vegas’ problems actually started several years ago when the collective brain trust that runs things apparently decided that the city needed to be more serious.
Las Vegas used to be fun. It still is, but in a totally different, more grown-up and much more expensive kind of way.
Remember the talking animatronic camels or the robot that used to whirl around the attractions level at Luxor playing “Walk Like an Egyptian”? Remember Ginger the tic-tac-toe playing chicken at The Tropicana? Remember the silly glee you used to feel when you walked into places like New York-New York or Paris Las Vegas for the first time?
During the boom of the 1990s, the city was all about excess. It was its own version of an arms race: who could build the wildest, most over-the-top spectacle. It seemed, for a time, that no idea was too outrageous. Let’s build a castle! Let’s put a canal down the center of a mall! Let’s put a volcano in front of the hotel!
Even the ideas that never came to fruition were more fun than the ones that aren’t coming to fruition these days. The Titanic hotel with a shopping mall in the iceberg; the San Francisco resort with a driveway across a replica of the Golden Gate bridge; the 10,000 room hotel shaped like the moon; the giant gorilla that was going to climb the side of the Stratosphere. Now all we get are bland luxury hotels with sleek glass exteriors and lots of fancy furniture.
Of course along with these more “tasteful” hotels come significantly more “tasteful” price tags, which is another thing that has diminished the fun factor in Vegas. I understand that corporations want to make money and I also understand that Las Vegas was built on the concept of greed, but maybe the time has come for someone to say “It’s okay to make a little less money” and knock down those room rates and dinner checks to levels that the Average Joe – you remember him, don’t you? – can afford.
Maybe the tough times the city is going through right now is exactly what it needed. The handful of massive corporations that run most of the casinos in town may have to start selling off assets to survive, which could mean a set of fresh faces will come to town to shake things up. Competition is a good thing and the smart investor could make a big splash by returning to the wacky, headline generating days of yore.
There is reportedly a new owner gearing up to take charge of The Tropicana. My message to him: bring back the tic-tac-toe playing chicken!
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