Las Vegas was known as a place for inexpensive hotel rooms and food to lure you into the hotels casino. The mantra was bring them in anyway you can because we will get the money in the casino. For downtown, that may still be the case, but the strip has changed significantly.

Older hotels are being torn down to make room for upscale properties that charge room rates you would expect to find in most major cities. The traffic for the strip is now upscale as conventions, business travelers, and folks with lots of disposable income are flocking into the city and demand for the better things in life is now the rule.

No longer is the room just a place to sleep off a big night in the casino. It is now filled with fancy accessories as flat panel televisions, fancy sheets, and exotic soaps. More Visa Las Vegas than Viva Las Vegas.

Loud imposing smoke-filled casinos still anchor this town, and $50 rates are still typical at hotels downtown, away from the action. But the Strip, the boulevard of Las Vegas dreams, is no longer home to the low-cost weekend getaway.
Las Vegas “was known as the capital of cheap rooms and cheap food,” said Alan Feldman, a spokesman for MGM Mirage, the giant hotel and casino company developing the Boardwalk site. “It was known as the capital of the cheap vacation — and you got what you paid for. We used to give coupon books for free drinks and two-for-one buffet. Now we have 300-thread-count sheets and turn-down service.”
The trends conform to Las Vegas’s effort to redefine itself as a more diversified destination, offering superb but costly restaurants ($88 for the 12-ounce grilled Kobe rib-eye steak at Tao at the Venetian) and shows like Cirque du Soleil’s “O” ($93.50 to $150 a seat). The new features have helped keep Las Vegas growing even as many new casinos — from small card houses to Indian casinos — are springing up around the country and providing local outlets for gamblers. via New York Times.

While the  airlines are seeing losses with high fuel prices and intense competition, individual airports are doing very well in traffic volume. Since the airports charge revenue by passenger arrivals and departures and gate fees, it means that the airports revenues are not dependent on the airlines success, but just the passenger volume. Las Vegas has had a particularly good year on 2005.  

“We are seeing tremendous volume of passengers into our airport,” McCarran Airport spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez said. “It is a good thing for our community.”  McCarran saw 44.3 million passengers come through its gates last year, a 6.8 percent increase from the previous year and a 22 percent jump from 2003.

These large increases follow a few years of flat growth following the terrorist attacks in 2001. After a few months of double-digit declines following 9/11, the airport rebounded to post only a .5 percent decline in 2002, followed by a 3.6 percent increase in 2003 before the two years of record-setting growth. Via Las Vegas Business Press

I thought that this complete list of Spring Break 2006 Schedule for Colleges and Universities was helpful to those who are planning on hitting the beach in the next few weeks. Panama City, South Padre Island, the Bahamas, and Daytona are all gonna be hopping.

Sometimes it is awesome to have know what other schools are going to be out so you can plan accordingly. So here is the list.

Spring Break from 2/25/2006 -3/5/2006

• Northeastern University-Boston
• University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
• Western Michigan University

Spring Break from 3/4/2006 - 3/12/2006

(more…)

Hooters Hotel Casino is now  open in Las Vegas. With bright orange everywhere, and young ladies throughout the property wearing the traditional hooters outfits, the Hotel and Casino is now open to the general public after 10 months of renovating the old San Remo Casino just off the strip.

I am wondering if this is another ploy to increase the odds in the houses favor. Trying to keep track of ones cards amongst the curvaceous dealers will be a test for even the most stoic gambler.

The former San Remo property has been “hooterized.” Final touches are being put on the rooms, including bar tables and stools complete with bright orange lighting. From the casino floors to the rooms, this place is bound to be a hoot.
One of the unique things about this new resort is the fact that you can make reservations for the Hooters Hotel Casino in Las Vegas from any Hooters Restaurant. They have the Hooters Hotline; all you have to do is pick up the orange phone which will connect you directly to the Vegas resort.
“We’re putting in a reservation terminal in each of the 400 restaurants domestically. You’ll be able to pick up the orange hotline with a direct call right to Las Vegas and let us know you’re coming and we’ll book you a room,” said Richard Langloix, Senior VP of Marketing. via KVBC

The Hooters Hotel Casino Web Page

The combination of a sporting facility, casino, and hotel resort in Las Vegas is an interesting concept that has some great potential for success. It also has the potential to be a 4 billion dollar bomb.

Why do I say that, well the biggest danger to sports is if the fans learn a game is fixed. Typically this happens when sporting events have wagering on them and pressure is applied to athletes to fix the score of the game.

That is why you can not place bets in Nevada on Nevada college sports. Yet now you are going to have a destination that will feature live events and betting under the same roof? I think the idea is interesting, but at the slightest whiff of scandal, the whole enterprise could come crashing down.

So this will be a huge bet placed in the home of the gamblers. It will be interesting.

The project is based on a hybrid “casino,” “destination,” and “sports” business model. For instance, the final name of the resort will be determined through a naming rights deal similar to those recently associated with stadium, arena and title sponsorships in sports. The resort will provide sports-minded consumers with unparalleled access to watch sports, play sports, test state-of-the-art sports equipment and enjoy the finest assembly of sports memorabilia, collectibles and trading cards. In addition, visitors can purchase the widest range of sports-related products in the world.
“Forty million people visit Las Vegas every year with live entertainment dollars to spend, but there are very few entertainment options between the hours of 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.,” said Matt Rose, President and CEO of Ultimate Sports Entertainment Inc. “We plan to meet that need and then provide 150,000 square feet of casino, food to satisfy every palate and budget and amazing nightlife that will keep our guests and visitors entertained 24 hours a day.”
Ultimate Sports Entertainment Inc. enjoys the support of the United States Olympic Committee, more than 25 National Governing Bodies and countless sports organizations who are interested in holding regional and national competitions at the resort once it is completed.

Ultimate Sports Entertainment Unveils $4 Billion Las Vegas Plan - RGT Online.

One of the great names in Las Vegas Casino lore is going to be gone this year. The Stardust Hotel and Casino will be leaving to create the mega-complex  called the Echelon.

The Stardust Hotel and Casino, in business since 1958, will close later this year and be torn down in 2007 to make way for a $4 billion development to be called Echelon Place, it was announced last week. The 60-plus acre project from parent company Boyd Gaming will contain a grand total of 5,300 hotel rooms operating under four different banners.
The first, and by far the biggest, is the Boyd-owned and operated Echelon Resort, a $2.9 billion hotel and casino that will feature 3,300 rooms — 2,600 “standard” units in one tower and 700 suites in a second.
Next will be a Las Vegas version of the chic Los Angeles hotel the Mondrian that will feature 1,000 rooms and a separate check-in, pool, restaurants, bars and more.
The same group that is creating the Mondrian will also create a 600-room Delano hotel, patterned after the South Beach resort of the same name.
Finally, one of the leading hotel groups in Asia will build a 400 room Shangri-La hotel, complete with a 20,000-square-foot casino.
At the center of all of this accommodation madness is a massive casino and entertainment facility. It will feature 140,000 square feet of casino space (that’s second only to MGM Grand on the Strip), a 350,000-square-foot shopping facility (roughly the same size as Venetian’s Grand Canal Shoppes), a 4,000-seat theater for major productions and concerts, a 1,500-seat theater for smaller events, 1 million square feet of convention space, a giant pool and recreation area and another spa. via KTVU.com

America’s Party: Las Vegas New Year 2006 is the Las Vegas blow out of the year. I would love to be there for this extravaganza.

The city will be ending its Centennial year with a bang during “America’s Party: Las Vegas New Year 2006.” A five-mile-long fireworks extravaganza with a Centennial theme will ring in 2006 in classic Las Vegas style.
The theme of the pyrotechnic display will be “Vegas Through the Years: A Finale to the Centennial.” The sound track for the display will include Las Vegas icons Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Tom Jones, Elvis and Liberace. The tribute in light and sound will celebrate Las Vegas’ rich history, with a finale to honor the city’s Centennial.

More than 40,000 effects will be fired from the rooftop locations. Special effects such as the world famous Grucci Gold Flitter Split Comets will be highlighted during Sinatra’s “Luck be a Lady Tonight”, while multicolored Strobes shells will highlight the fancy keystrokes of Liberace’s “Chop Sticks.” Fireworks by Grucci has developed some sparkling neon colors for Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas,” a fitting end to the program and the finale of the Centennial celebration.
America’s Party is being produced by Las Vegas Events and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority. It is being co-produced by Fireworks by Grucci of New York, world-renowned for its mind-bending pyrotechnic creations. The eye-popping five-mile-long display will be launched from 10 resort rooftops.
The ten rooftop locations for the pyrotechnic display include the Excalibur, MGM Grand, Monte Carlo, Bally’s, Flamingo Las Vegas, Venetian, Treasure Island (TI), Stardust, Circus-Circus and Stratosphere.
For visitors and residents spending the evening in downtown Las Vegas, the Fremont Street Experience – located on the street where Las Vegas first began – will pay tribute to Las Vegas’ rich history with a New Year’s Eve celebration featuring live music and entertainment beginning at 7 p.m. For more information on New Year’s Eve festivities throughout Las Vegas, visit http://www.visitlasvegas.com/. For more information about America’s Party: Las Vegas New Year 2006, visit http://www.americasparty2006.com/

New Year’s Eve Festivities (Official City of Las Vegas Web Site).

From Money Magazine comes the some of the top places to vacation that have everything but the crowds.

NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - If you go skiing in Vail this winter, you’ll find more than 100 trails of deep white powder and cozy mountainside lodges. If you go skiing in Big Sky, Mont., you’ll also find more than 100 trails of deep white powder and cozy mountainside lodges.

The difference? Vail gets roughly 1.5 million visitors a year. Big Sky? Around a fifth of that.

For every popular locale that attracts tourists in droves, there’s another location that has much of the same, minus the maddening crowds (and the higher prices that popular destinations charge during their peak season).

The destination highlighted are as follows:

Instead of Vail…try skiing Big Sky, Montana
Instead of Pebble Beach…golf Kiawah Island, S.C.
Instead of St. Thomas…sunbathe in Mustique
Instead of Las Vegas…visit Las Vegas in the off-season