Olympics not generating much Las Vegas business

Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2001 | 11:04 a.m.

Though the cost of lodging will be steep in Salt Lake City during the Winter Olympics in February, Las Vegas casinos aren't gearing up to accommodate spectators who may want to commute to the Games on airliners.

Casino officials say they aren't making the effort because experience has shown that people who go to the Olympics are more inclined to pay a visit to Las Vegas before or after the Games for fun, but won't use Las Vegas as a cheap bedroom for the big event.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority estimated Las Vegas saw a spinoff economic impact of $138 million in nongaming revenue around the 1984 Los Angeles Games, most of it in before-and-after trips.

One big reason Las Vegas isn't expecting itself to be a bedroom community to Salt Lake City for three weeks: There are no plans in place for additional air transportation between McCarran International Airport and Salt Lake City.

A spot check of some of the city's largest casino operators indicates there have been a few scattered inquiries about spectators packaging a side trip to Las Vegas either before or after the Olympics -- and even less interest in staying in the city's inexpensive hotel rooms and flying one hour to Salt Lake City to see any of the events.

High demand and lack of hotel infrastructure are driving prices higher in Utah for the Games Feb. 7-25, which will attract 1.5 million visitors. The Salt Lake Olympic Games' Internet site advertises packages that include lodging and event tickets ranging from $2,510 to $10,810 per person, based on double occupancy. Those prices are per package, which range from three-day to five-day stays.

Tickets to many of the top events are only offered through packages and most of the high-profile events -- like opening and closing ceremonies, the gold-medal ice hockey game and most of the figure skating events -- are already sold out.

But tickets are still available for some of the less popular sports, like curling, and some of the preliminary games leading up to the medal rounds.

Casino representatives say airline support is critical to any plan for sports fans to commute to the Olympics from Las Vegas.

Representatives of casinos and airlines that have flights between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City say it's too early to determine if there's any additional demand for flights, but the two major carriers serving the market say it's unlikely they'll add flights during the Games.

"Even if you decided to do that (commute between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City), it may not be convenient and you're going to miss the whole atmosphere that ignites the host city during the Olympics," said John Marz, senior vice president of marketing and events for Mandalay Resort Group.

"Part of the whole Olympics experience is being there. I watched the Olympics in Australia (in 2000) on television and I wish I would have been there," Marz said. "It would have been much better being there than commuting every day from New Zealand."

The dominant air carriers in the Las Vegas-Salt Lake City market are Southwest Airlines, Dallas, which has eight flights a day between the cities, and Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, which is the official airline sponsor of the 2002 Games and has five daily flights.

Roz Santangelo, a spokeswoman for Southwest, said the company hasn't completed the schedule the airline will use in February, but it isn't likely more flights would be added. She said Southwest has been in talks with the LVCVA, which asked for more flights to Salt Lake City during the Games.

Delta's Peggy Estes said it's possible her company would add flights between Salt Lake City and the airline's international gateway cities, Atlanta and New York -- but not to Las Vegas.

"We've talked with Southwest and Delta," said Bill Mahaffey, manager of transportation for the LVCVA. "Some hotels are doing their own promotions, but the airlines have made no overtures. We're monitoring the situation to see if potential loads would warrant additional seats at that time."

Mahaffey said Delta could possibly add seats with a tactic commonly used by airlines to increase capacity during seasonal travel -- by using larger aircraft. Major carriers commonly boost the size of planes that serve ski resorts in Colorado during the winter months.

Delta could hypothetically do the same thing for three weeks, using jumbo jets instead of Boeing 737s on some flights. Southwest wouldn't be able to increase capacity with larger planes since the company only flies one size jet.

But Estes said Delta's winter schedule hasn't been completed either.

"Delta has not determined where we may find it necessary to add larger aircraft or extra flights during the Olympic period," she said."We will make those decisions based on the demand we see in select markets."

But where local resorts may strike some Olympic gold is in pre- or post-Olympics trips to Las Vegas by international visitors. But resort officials say the impact of even those trips probably will be minimal.

"We would hope there would be a little added bump in room revenues," said Alan Feldman, a spokesman for MGM MIRAGE, which owns the MGM Grand, Mirage, Bellagio, Golden Nugget and Treasure Island hotel-casinos.

"When you operate in the high 90s (90 percent hotel occupancy rate), an event like this is hardly noticeable," Feldman said."What's 2,000 more (people) when you have 120,000 rooms? Las Vegas long ago lost its seasonality. We're pretty full on a year-around basis."

Debbie Munch, spokeswoman for Park Place Entertainment, which operates Caesars Palace, Paris-Las Vegas, Bally's, the Flamingo and the Las Vegas Hilton, said February already is a strong month for Las Vegas casinos so the prospect of additional Olympics traffic isn't likely to make much difference.

"February is not a time that we're fighting to fill rooms," Munch said. "There's Chinese New Year that's usually active for two weeks, Valentines Day, when we have a lot of people in town for weddings and also wedding anniversaries and there's a three-day weekend for Presidents Day."

Munch said it's still early to determine whether Olympic demand would increase.

"The traditional booking window is about three months out, so we'll have a better handle on it in November or so," she said. "We've seen limited interest in group commuting (from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City) and a key factor for that to work would be to have an airline partner that would come forward to provide shuttle service."

Marz said his company, which operates Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur and Circus Circus, hasn't seen any out-of-the-ordinary room booking patterns for February yet.

"February is traditionally a strong month with convention business in town, and we're really not sure how much Olympic spillover there would be," he said.

Feldman said he wasn't too surprised by the high prices being offered for lodging in Salt Lake City. The rules of supply and demand prevail, he said, just like they do during the Comdex technology convention, when Las Vegas' room rates swell above normal levels.

The Salt Lake Organizing Committee has designated Coldwell Banker Premier Realty as its official licensee for residential accommodations during the Games. News accounts from Salt Lake City have indicate that many Utahns plan to flee the area during the Olympics and will rent their homes to spectators.

The same phenomenon occurred in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, said Delta Air Lines' Estes.

"We were told how awful it was going to be down at the airport, but when I went to work during the Olympics, it really wasn't that bad," she said. "I think the reason why is that so many people went on vacation during the Olympics so there was no local traffic going down to the airport to pick people up. It was all people coming in for the Games, so we didn't have as much traffic to fight."

The LVCVA also hopes to capitalize on the Olympics with a Las Vegas advertising campaign with alternative media in Salt Lake City during the Games.

Erika Brandvik, an LVCVA spokeswoman, said the agency is considering roving billboards and bus wraps to remind visitors to Salt Lake City that Las Vegas isn't that far away. She also said the LVCVA's Asian and European representatives are selling travel agencies there on the idea of packaging treks to the Olympics with a side trip to Las Vegas.

The LVCVA and the state of Nevada also are investigating borrowing a steam engine from a tourist attraction in Ely to pull a train that would be a rolling visitors center for the state. The train would transport members of the press to the biathlon venue in Utah's Heber Valley, a move the LVCVA hopes would draw the international news media's attention.

Chris Chrystal, media relations manager for the Nevada Commission on Tourism, said several resorts and travel companies have discussed packaging Nevada accommodations with the Olympics, including pre- and post-Games visits and commuting to the venues from Nevada cities.

But she said she hasn't heard of any partnerships between resorts and airlines.

The extent of the Commission on Tourism's involvement in marketing at the Olympics will be to offer a joint visitors center with the states of Utah, Arizona and Idaho in the heart of Salt Lake City. The state also plans to offer some familiarization trips from Salt Lake City to Nevada to journalists covering the Games.

Chrystal also said a $1 million adventure travel advertising campaign spotlighting Nevada's outdoor recreation opportunities would be unveiled at the Olympics. She said material about helicopter skiing, snowmobiling, mountain biking, hiking and rock climbing in the state would play well with the Olympics audience.

Lake Tahoe officials also are looking at marketing their ski resorts to skiers who normally would go to Utah resorts for winter vacations, but aren't this year because of the anticipated crowds in February.

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