Saturday, April 18, 1998 | 2:23 a.m.
There was a 15.8 percent decline in casino win for the Strip in March and McCarran International Airport reported that air-passenger traffic fell once again, the seventh decline in the past eight months. Coupled with the fact that more than 20,000 new rooms will open in the next three years, these numbers raise concerns about the outlook for tourism in Las Vegas.
That's why Thursday's U.S. Senate Commerce subcommittee meeting in Las Vegas, chaired by Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., was all the more timely. As SUN gaming reporter Gary Thompson has reported extensively, there are basically three ways tourists get to Las Vegas -- plane, train and automobile -- and each artery is experiencing problems.
"At a time when air service to Las Vegas is leveling off, we need significant increases in air service to fill these rooms," Bryan said. The dialogue at Thursday's meeting among tourism officials, casino executives and airline representatives was healthy, but no quick fixes were found to be around the corner. Still, the roundtable discussion generated some important ideas.
MGM Grand Inc. Chairman Terry Lanni noted that some believe 6 million more visitors will be needed to keep up with existing hotel occupancy rates once the new rooms are built. He said Las Vegas needs to better educate airlines, tour operators and independent travelers about what Las Vegas has to offer. Mirage Resorts Inc. executive Barry Shier added that the marketing effort needs to be thought out and coordinated. In a new promotion of Las Vegas, "we must all be on the same page," Shier said, "so we don't disappoint again."
Casino and tourism officials need to rethink quickly their strategies to lure more visitors here. When gaming first started to spread across the nation in the early 1990s, there was talk that Las Vegas would suffer because visitors would stay at home and not bother to travel here to gamble. In response, casinos successfully marketed Las Vegas as a full-fledged tourist destination, offering much more than just gaming.
Today's challenge requires a redoubling of the past ingenuity and work by the private and public sectors to maintain the remarkable success Las Vegas has experienced throughout the 1990s. Thursday's meeting was an important first step in that process.
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