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Weekend Rates For Las Vegas Hotel Rooms Rise

LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Sept. 27, 2001 --Las Vegas hotel room rates are 5.7 percent higher this coming weekend than they were last weekend, according to a Review-Journal phone survey of Strip and downtown hotel-casinos.

Despite the increase, experts say the rates are much lower than they would have been before the economic fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"September and October are typically good times for Las Vegas operators," said Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor, a casino industry watchdog. "The summer doldrums are over, and the slow holiday season still is pretty far away."

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority research analyst Kevin Bagger said September is the city's fourth- or fifth-best month for hotel occupancy and visitation, after March, April and October.

Curtis said that the average September weekend rate for the hotels surveyed would normally be between $145 and $150.

The 11 properties surveyed had an average nightly rate of $111 for a double-occupancy room last weekend. That survey, conducted Sept. 18, was compared with a new survey performed Tuesday.

The average rate at the 11 properties this coming weekend is $117.36.

Despite the 5.7 percent increase, several hotels were renting rooms for less this coming weekend than a week ago. They include:

• Bellagio, from $199 to $159.

• Bally's, from $89 to $69.

• Golden Nugget, from $99 to $79.

The biggest jump in rates was at Harrah's, where rooms priced at $60 last weekend were selling for $115.

Curtis attributes the $6.36 increase in the average rate this coming weekend to an effort by the hotels to hold the line on prices.

"They made a preliminary round of cuts last weekend, cutting rates by about 30 percent," he said. "I've heard that most of the bigger places are literally shutting down wings or floors in their hotels. They've decided to reduce inventory, allowing them to reduce staff and hold the line on price."

MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman said the company's hotels are doing just that.

"Anyone who's half-full would obviously do that," Feldman said Wednesday. "It doesn't make sense to air condition the hallways and staff the floors. Spreading 60 percent of the audience over 100 percent of the hotel doesn't make any sense."

Curtis doesn't expect the discounting to end soon.

"Aside from the biggest convention weeks, I think the aggressive pricing will continue until the end of the year," he predicted.

Properties traditionally have higher hotel room occupancy rates on the weekend, with many Strip operators routinely reporting weekend occupancy figures over 95 percent.

Many hotels reported occupancy in the 50 percent range two weekends ago, while an estimated 73 percent of the city's nearly 125,000 rooms were occupied last weekend.

Hotel, restaurant and show revenue is increasingly important to Strip megaresorts, reducing the operators' reliance on winning money from gamblers.

Strip hotel-casinos generated $2.2 billion, or 25.2 percent of their 2000 revenue from hotel rooms, according to Bear, Stearns & Co. That compared with $1.6 billion in food and beverage revenue and $4.3 billion won from gamblers.

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