LOOKING IN ON: TOURISM

By Richard N. Velotta (contact)

Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

For those thinking that getting additional taxi service during next month's National Basketball Association All-Star Game was going to be a slam dunk, think again.

Although the NBA's annual meeting of hard-court millionaires has been on the Las Vegas calendar for more than a year, the debate about whether to put more cabs on the streets during the event somehow eluded the Nevada Taxicab Authority.

Board members promise to meet before the Feb. 18 tip-off at the Thomas & Mack Center to talk about how many extra cabs the city will need.

At the board's January meeting, staff said it expected the game to attract 150,000 people to the city, from Feb. 15 when NBA officials start arriving to Feb. 19, the day after the game.

Based on a formula of adding an extra cab per company for every 18,000 additional people in town, the authority staff recommended allocating 20 cabs per company for any 12-hour period per day - potentially 320 additional vehicles on the streets.

Cab company owners and their drivers were astonished because it was the same allocation allowed for the town's biggest convention, the Consumer Electronics Show.

After a little discussion, everyone realized that the NBA game is expected to draw a total of 150,000 people for the five days, or about 30,000 a day. But it also raised some other questions: How many of those 30,000 a day are local residents who won't need cabs, attending events associated with the game?

How many NBA stars and hangers-on would actually use cabs?

"This looks more like a limo crowd," authority board Chairwoman Kathryn Werner said.

And probably stretch limos at that.

This will be an interesting week for Las Vegas' second-busiest air carrier, US Airways, with airline executives awaiting a final response from bankrupt Delta Air Lines about a $10.4 billion hostile merger proposal.

If this corporate wedding takes place, what's in it for Las Vegas?

US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker said Las Vegas would remain a hub city, meaning that it flies nonstop to more destinations than most carriers.

An important part of the Delta deal is its fleet. Delta has 79 jets capable of making long-haul international flights. US Airways has 19, with most of them committed to existing service between Philadelphia and Europe.

Delta's jumbo jets are spread around with service from New York, Atlanta and Cincinnati to Europe and from Atlanta to Central and South America.

Parker has said it would be possible to give Las Vegas international routes if it had the fleet to do it. Acquiring Delta could be a step in that direction.

When New York-based Loews Hotels took over the 493-room Hyatt Regency in Lake Las Vegas, it packed up the casino and turned it into a meeting room because company officials had no desire to get into the casino business.

But that doesn't mean Loews wouldn't love the opportunity to be on the Las Vegas Strip.

"If there was some availability, we'd love to be there," said Chief Executive Jonathan Tisch, one of the rock stars of the tourism industry, in a 24-hour visit to his newest property.

Tisch said his company would most likely be interested in deal similar to the one that put the Four Seasons on the top floors of Mandalay Bay because Strip land is so expensive and the company wouldn't have casino revenue to offset the expense.