That building is going up down the street next to Planet Hollywood. Across the street from us the huge City Center development is being built, and all around the town there are cranes and massive towers climbing out of the desert. From appearances you'd think all is well in this gambler's paradise, but according to this British article, not so:
Since the day Las Vegas was created in the shimmering Nevada desert, visitors have been drawn by one simple promise: "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". The motto adorns the city's road signs, and has inspired everything from its souvenir T-shirts to the local tourist board's seductive advertising campaigns.
These days, that motto is imbued with a worrying sense of irony. Because America's most outrageous city is facing a growing multitude of problems, and they all boil down to a single, unavoidable point: right now, far too little happens in Vegas, because not enough people are actually staying there.
The onset of global slowdown, high petrol prices, and a nation-wide housing slump is spelling disaster for a town that owes every aspect of its wealth – from that gaudy replica of the Eiffel Tower to those scale models of Venetian canals and the Pyramids of Egypt – to its ability to inspire free-spending hedonism.
With Americans cutting back on luxuries, and the price of transport rocketing, the so-called "Vegas vacation" is facing the axe. This week, as the nation celebrated Independence Day, major hotels were taking stock of a fall in all-important room occupancy rates from their usually impressive 95 per cent levels to nearer 80 per cent.
More worryingly, new figures showed gambling revenue has also dropped – a further 3 per cent this month – starting a price war between worried firms anxious to lure punters back. Hotel rooms, which last year averaged $130 each, now go for less than $100 (£50).
At the vast Planet Hollywood resort, the clatter of fruit machines and poker chips was this week replaced by an uneasy – and, for Vegas, very unusual – calm. A large if slightly tatty double room could be found for less than $80.
No tourist resort can afford to lose its buzz. Yet the slump now runs so deep it's starting to hurt even the town's Elvis impersonators, wedding chapels, and sex industry. When money's tight, the prospect of stuffing another $20 bill into a lap-dancer's gyrating stocking-top somehow doesn't seem quite so enticing.
The rate here at Paris was the best I'd ever seen which is one of the reasons we decided to stay here. You normally can't find a hotel as nice as this for that kind of price, especially so close to a major holiday weekend.
There are still plenty of people here, but they may not be spending as much as they used to, and the town will have to keep room rates at a decent level to make it worth the increased expense to drive or fly here. I noticed that there seems to be a great many foreign visitors around (I keep hearing strange languages). I'm sure the weakened dollar is making Vegas pretty affordable for the foreign set.
We might as well enjoy it while we can because the economy tends to run in cycles and before you know it room rates at Paris will be back in the $150 range for their off-peak days.
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