Circus RV park successfully tests Airstreams

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, March 19, 2010 | 3 a.m.

About a year ago, when the weather was getting nice and people were starting to think about going camping, the folks at Billings, Mont.-based Kampgrounds of America — KOA Kampgrounds — came up with this crazy idea about parking some “silver bullet” Airstream trailers at their facilities and letting campers rent them like hotel rooms.

KOA chose its recreational vehicle park at Circus Circus on the Strip as one of the first places in the United States to try the experiment.

With fabulous hotel rooms up and down the Strip, would people really want to camp in an Airstream trailer when in Las Vegas? I was a little skeptical, but, hey, it was their experiment. KOA worked a deal with Airstream, considered the Cadillac of the travel-trailer, to place 10 of its 25-foot Flying Clouds on KOA’s 366-space RV park at Circus Circus.

The concept was rolled out in Las Vegas and Key West, Fla., and gave KOA franchisees the opportunity buy Airstreams at discounted rates and rent them to campers who wanted to try out the $50,000 units.

“Even in Las Vegas, there are some people who just like to camp out,” Shane Ott, then president and chief operating officer of KOA, said at the time.

Ott considered Las Vegas to be a perfect startup location because 4 percent of KOA’s most loyal customers reside in the greater Los Angeles area and he thought Southern California campers would embrace the Circus Circus Airstreams.

“We look at this as the best of both worlds,” said Ott, who is now a campground liaison for the parent company of Airstream. “You can enjoy the benefits of camping. You can grill outside, right next to where you’re staying. You can meet up with people who share that lifestyle. There’s a well-stocked convenience store in the campground and, if you want, you can just walk over to the hotel for your entertainment.

“And then, when you’re done for the day, you’ve got very comfortable accommodations.”

And comfortable they are.

Each unit has a different décor, but they all have a galley with a stove, a refrigerator, kitchen pantries, a 48-by-78-inch bed, a flat-screen TV (with cable hookup), a lavatory and shower and a dinette that converts to a 38-by-76-inch sleeping area.

When I went to the Circus Circus RV Park last week, I saw only two Airstreams and I surmised that the experiment didn’t go as well as KOA would have liked.

But the reality was that it worked well enough in Las Vegas that the Airstreams were shipped to other locations.

“I wondered when someone down your way would notice that there are a few less ‘silver bullets’ at the Circus Circus KOA,” company spokesman Mike Gast said in an e-mail. “We are moving them around to test the concept in additional locations. We were happy with the Las Vegas experience, even in a down economy. They did OK.”

Actually, they did better than OK, according to Greg Dunagan, general manager of the KOA at Circus Circus.

The Airstreams commanded a nightly rate of $99 on weekdays, $109 on weekends with even higher rates during holidays and special events. Moving the inventory out of Las Vegas will create greater demand for less commodity, assuring that KOA can get top rates on the units.

“It’s kind of a good thing-bad thing for us,” Dunagan said. “It’s nice having a larger inventory, but because we have fewer we can maintain our rate.”

In essence, Circus Circus KOA is taking a silver bullet for Team KOA, as more of the company’s franchises will get to offer the iconic trailers.

Dunagan said the Airstreams offer an unusual opportunity for people who are considering buying one because renting them at a KOA “is the only way you could stay in one short of owning one.”

Gast said the company earlier moved some of the trailers to Santa Cruz, Calif., and they did even better than in Las Vegas.

“That caused us to think we needed to experiment more and faster,” he said.

Today, KOA’s fleet of 25 Airstreams is scattered across the country, from Las Vegas to Bar Harbor, Maine, and from Trinity, Calif., to Sugarloaf Key, near Key West, Fla.

Although snowbird campers are fewer, KOA had its best year for summertime reservations in 2009, Gast said. He attributes that to the public refusing to give up its leisure time and going to a lower recreational entry point: camping, instead of expensive resort visits. The Airstreams became a part of KOA’s high-end experience.

“They are such great conversation pieces that we feel we have to maximize that exposure, even if it means we have fewer at any one location — at least in the short term,” Gast said.

LVCVA stats

Visitation got off to a good start in Las Vegas in 2010, according to recent statistics released by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

January visitor volume of 2.88 million people was a 4 percent increase over January 2009.

But the stat that got my attention was the 1.8 percentage point increase in the weekend occupancy rate to 81.5 percent. The occupancy rate increased despite the 5.8 percent increase in the number of rooms in the Las Vegas inventory of 148,891 rooms.

Because midweek visitation — convention and business travelers — is still weak, the overall occupancy rate was down in January, but not by much. The authority reported citywide occupancy down 0.8 percentage points to 71.1 percent — a percentage most cities would kill for.

The average daily room rate is still down, which is bad news for hotel operators, but good news for consumers. The January rate was $99.75, down 4.9 percent from January 2009.

It’s a reflection of visitors’ willingness to come here, but reluctance to spend as much money as they once did. That’s affirmed by the latest gaming revenue report issued by the state Gaming Control Board, which said Clark County gaming revenue was down 2.2 percent to $764.4 million. Strip revenue was off 3 percent to $495 million.

For those wondering how January’s visitation numbers stacked up with previous years, the 2.88 million visitors that came in 2010 were 8.3 percent fewer than the 3.14 million that came in January 2008 and 8.8 percent fewer than the 3.16 million that came in January 2007.

We’re No. 1

Las Vegas recently finished atop two tourism-gauging lists produced by prominent online travel booking companies.

On orbitz.com’s list of the most popular spring break destinations, Las Vegas retained its top ranking in 2010, beating out No. 2 Cancun, Mexico. The rest of the top 10: New York; Honolulu; Orlando, Fla.; Miami Beach, Fla.; San Francisco; Puna Cana, Mexico; San Diego; and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Orbitz also analyzed which spring break destinations had the highest percentage declines in room rates this year from spring 2009. Fort Myers, Fla., which has an average daily room rate of $95 a night, according to Orbitz, topped that list because that rate is 29 percent lower than it was in spring ’09. Las Vegas didn’t make the top 10 of that list.

Others on the “bargain list” are Kapaa, Hawaii (Kauai); Riviera Maya, Mexico; Savannah, Ga.; Puerto Morelos, Mexico; Tampa, Fla.; Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Clearwater Beach, Fla.; Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; and Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

Of note from the “bargain list:” The average daily room rate in Las Vegas in March 2009 was $92.46, according to the LVCVA. Only Kapaa, at $87 a night, has a lower 2010 rate than that and it’s much harder — and more expensive — to fly to Kauai for most people.

Meanwhile, hotels.com Hotel Price Index, an annual survey of hotel prices in major international destinations provided by hotels.com, listed Nevada as the most popular and affordable state in the nation for hotel rooms, and Las Vegas plays a key role in that.

The index incorporates chains as well as independents and includes vacation rentals and bed-and-breakfast properties.

“Vegas, as well as … Nevada, experienced an 18 percent drop in room costs in 2009, with the average price per room per night falling from $96 to $79,” hotels.com said in a news release about its index. “As prices decreased, more domestic tourists flocked to Vegas in search of great deals and potential for a more affordable 3-, 4- or 5-star experience.”

Scott Booker, hotels.com vice president of global retail, added, “Now is the time to try your luck with Vegas. With room rates at an all-time low, Americans itching to roll the dice or spin the roulette wheel will find great deals.”

That’s not a bad endorsement.

Las Vegas was listed as the top domestic destination for U.S. travelers. The city was followed by New York, Orlando, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, Boston and Atlanta in the top 10.

Las Vegas also was the second most-popular destination in the United States among international travelers, according to hotels.com, trailing only New York.

Stormy quarter

When first-quarter earnings calls are made next month and in May, airlines will hearken back to February when winter storms wiped out millions of dollars in revenue.

Bloomberg reported last week that storms led to a 1.7 percent decline in traffic with Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways suffering the biggest downturn at 4.7 percent.

McCarran International Airport’s busiest carrier, Southwest Airlines, showed a 2.3 percent decrease for the month.

The worst day was Feb. 10, when Washington received more than 10 inches of snow, forcing the closures of Dulles International and Reagan National airports. About 6,000 flights — 12 percent of all scheduled trips in the United States that day — were canceled.

Earlier in the month, about 5,000 flights were canceled one day near Washington and Chicago as a result of storms.

The 4.7 percent decline for US Airways resulted in $30 million in lost revenue, Bloomberg reported. Chicago-based United Airlines canceled only 0.5 percent of its flights, but it resulted in $40 million in lost revenue.

Airline analyst Helane Becker of Jesup & Lamont of New York, said the cancellation of an estimated 20,000 flights in February would cost six major airlines more than $100 million in revenue.

But Becker said despite that news for the airlines, things aren’t all bad. Business for the rest of February was robust and January traffic was up for the first time since May 2008, an indicator that travel demand is starting to grow.