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Vacation travel is down all over the world. More and more conventions are happening closer to corporate headquarters. In these hard economic times it’s a a city like Las Vegas that may be more susceptible to these king of cutbacks. As the city has been built on the these two very important trends. That of vacationers and convention goers.
In the last 10 years Las Vegas as a whole has made a big push to diversify their community so that the main source of revenue coming into the city is not all gambling. Well now that strategy albeit a sound one is actually hurting the Las Vegas economy more this time around. As now there are more businesses by way of hotels and restaurants and other businesses that rely on the non gamblers. All those family vacationers and convention goers that don’t gamble but spend their money in other ways around the city. Those smaller businesses are taking a big hit during this economic downturn.
The trend right now happening in Las Vegas is that the low to middle class businesses and casinos are taking a much bigger hit in the wallet due to that demographic of people cutting back so much. There are also indications that even the higher end casinos are starting to see a cut in their numbers from last year to this year. As even the high rollers are starting to cut back. The housing market in Las Vegas continues to be major anchor in brining the economy down. As prices continue to drop and foreclosures keep increasing from month to month.
High end Casino Hotel-Resorts are still going up. With the latest from Steve Wynn the Encore Wynn Resort is on schedule to open later this year. The MGM conglomerate is also in the midst of a giant Resort project the CityCenter under developement also. There appears to be no slowing down for the big boys on the block. Even though stocks are down across the board for casino companies.
Will Las Vegas weater the storm? Has it’s diversity away from the gambling market helped or hurt it’s chances to come out on top? What do you think of the new casion projects going on, can there really still be a demand and market for the city to take on more?
5:47 pm on August 7th, 2008 1
@PixelHead -
Good point on the plus side of all this economic misery. There are some sweet vacation packages to Vegas for the next 2 months out….
2:17 pm on August 5th, 2008 2
I am sure Las Vegas will come out of this economic storm smelling like roses. Those that can not, probably did not have a very secure customer base, but over all I don’t forsee a ton of problems for the city as a whole. And fear not, I am sure the real estate market will be bouncing back in not time. In the mean time, I am sure people can get some good comps to casinos and resorts that want to lure vacationers in.
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