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Holiday Weekend Brings Mixed Reviews

Some local business executives said the weekend could have been better; others said it could have been worse.

The New Year's holiday is traditionally one of the city's biggest, with most casino properties filling a big chunk of their hotel space with big-spending gamblers.

Rooms not provided to casino-comped bettors are sold at their highest prices, and citywide hotel occupancy is near capacity.

In some ways the recent holiday was different.

Some top gamblers stayed home, prompting a glass-is-half-empty perspective from MGM Mirage spokeswoman Shelly Mansholt.

"In some ways it was a down weekend because our room rates were 20 percent to 40 percent lower than we'd ordinarily be able to charge," Mansholt said. "Visits from our overseas customers dropped by as much as 75 percent to 80 percent."

MGM Mirage sold all of its Las Vegas hotel rooms, but many of the rooms were booked at the last minute, much later than in past years, Mansholt said.

On the glass-is-half-full-side, Park Place Entertainment spokeswoman Debbie Munch said that the company's five Las Vegas casinos and all of their entertainment venues were completely sold out.

A performance by A-Mei, a Chinese young woman Munch called the Asian Britney Spears, sold out the 8,000-seat Paris Las Vegas ballroom.

MGM Mirage's Mansholt noted that while the city's gambling business may have taken a hit last weekend, other tourist destinations were hurt even more.

"The Bahamas, the Caribbean, cruise ships - they all are really hurting," she observed.

MGM Grand Executive Director of Hotel Operations Tim Kelly said the valet parking area at the city's biggest hotel-casino filled up several days earlier than normal.

"We had significantly more drive-in traffic for this New Year's," Kelly said. "We have about 1,500 valet spaces, and in most years they're all full by Dec. 30th or 31st. This year they were filled by Dec. 27."

The major operators won't release their casino revenue numbers covering business through Dec. 31 until their quarterly reports are released over the next seven weeks and the Nevada Gaming Control Board isn't scheduled to release December casino revenues until mid-February.

Hotel-casinos were not the only valley businesses dependent on a big New Year's holiday.

Jack Owens, general manager of Yellow-Checker-Star Transportation, Star, the metropolitan area's largest cab, limousine and coach company, said business over the New Year's weekend was down between 6 percent and 7 percent compared with a year earlier.

He said business was down 7 percent for the month of December but picked up slightly over the holiday weekend.

Owens attributed a change in the way revelers arrived for New Year's.

"So many more people drove in than flew in," Owens said.

Although the New Year's results were down, Owens said he hopes for better luck with the Consumer Electronics Show, set to start Tuesday. Early buzz for the convention suggests attendance will be robust, he said.

"We've heard (CES attendance) won't be too far off last year," he said.

Meanwhile, Brad Smithers, president of ABC Party Rentals, 4445 S. Valley View Blvd., said business was about the same as last year. Usually, Smithers said. orders for tables, chairs, linens and other party materials, would grow year to year, but the downturn since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has sapped that growth.

Similarly, Kim Tubbs, general manager for Presidential Limousine, said her company's business was unchanged compared with a year earlier. She said her company's 20 vehicle-plus fleet was sold out for New Year's Eve.

"It seemed people were ready to get out and enjoy themselves a little bit," Tubbs said, "because the holiday was really not an impact (event)."

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority estimated that 279,000 people would be visiting the valley on New Year's Eve, down 1.7 percent from the the record-setting 287,000 visitors who came the prior year.

The visitors were expected to contribute about $167 million in non-gambling revenue to the local economy, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority senior research analyst Kevin Bagger said Wednesday.

One Las Vegas casino executive even disputed the idea that the holiday weekend was four days long.

Mandalay Resort Group spokesman John Marz said most of his company's guests didn't stay for four days.

"We look at it as two two-day weekends," Marz said. "We get one group here for Friday and Saturday night, and another group here for Sunday and Monday night. It's two different weekends for our customers."

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