Much like the Palms the Virgin needs locals. Some tourists know about it but most don't...and nobody staying on the strip is going to bother Ubering over there unless there is some huge incentive to do so.
without a significant population of locals these off strip hotels will not survive the next economic downturn. Virgin is strugggling now in the midst of a strong economy.
I think the new Hard Rock is going to have a rough go of it. They are used to operating in markets with no or little competition. At their flagship Hollywood, Florida property, they are getting $400 + night on weekday stays.
I don't think the tribal management/ownership model holds up well in Vegas and I don't think the management has a good understanding of how Vegas works.
They aren't going to get $400 a night bookings at the Mirage on weekdays especially considering how many other 5 star properties are in that area of the strip. So how is the business model going to work if they can't count on that revenue from the rooms? I don't think they have the answer to that question and that is the problem regardless if you are talking about Virgin, Hard Rock or the Palms.
These mentioned off-Strip places (and the new Mirage) would have little to lose by offering some decent gaming incentives; proactive players club with really good promo draws, decent VP paytables, reasonable minimum 3:2 blackjack tables; retro back 25 years; read Bill Zender approaches. Those conditions would draw locals and visitor players alike and might represent the best marketing tool available at their disposal. Will they? Nope; every casino gaming manager is afraid of losing their job under the bean-counting mentality.
Originally posted by: Nines
These mentioned off-Strip places (and the new Mirage) would have little to lose by offering some decent gaming incentives; proactive players club with really good promo draws, decent VP paytables, reasonable minimum 3:2 blackjack tables; retro back 25 years; read Bill Zender approaches. Those conditions would draw locals and visitor players alike and might represent the best marketing tool available at their disposal. Will they? Nope; every casino gaming manager is afraid of losing their job under the bean-counting mentality.
I kinda get the cheap-skate-nickel-and-diming that happens with the public corporations like Casers and MGM. They have to answer to shareholders who demand growth. Its not enough to make a billion dollars in profit. You need to make more profit this year than you did last year or else the shareholders are upset. So it motivates management to grow profits even sometimes at the expense of the customer experience.
But private companies (like the Indian Tribe casinos) dont have that pressure. In theory that should give them a huge advantage over the public companies. They can just make their billion dollars and be happy with it...and not care that they didnt grow. So when they screw the customers it strikes me just as an exvecise in greed. I make a conscious effort not to reward them for it.
Originally posted by: PJ Stroh
I kinda get the cheap-skate-nickel-and-diming that happens with the public corporations like Casers and MGM. They have to answer to shareholders who demand growth. Its not enough to make a billion dollars in profit. You need to make more profit this year than you did last year or else the shareholders are upset. So it motivates management to grow profits even sometimes at the expense of the customer experience.
But private companies (like the Indian Tribe casinos) dont have that pressure. In theory that should give them a huge advantage over the public companies. They can just make their billion dollars and be happy with it...and not care that they didnt grow. So when they screw the customers it strikes me just as an exvecise in greed. I make a conscious effort not to reward them for it.
Whatever Virgin ( and others) were doing / not doing, their total efforts to draw in customers for gaming and / or overall customer experiences failed thus far. The Mohegan tribe is no longer in charge of casino management or the hotel operations at Virgin; the main problem listed by Virgin spopkespeople was a 4X drop in overall revenue at the end of 2023 vs 2022. They couldn't get butts in seats..then the culinary union got involved and applied more recent pressure on their cost ledger. What avenues do they have to draw in customers ? Looks like they need a completely new approach to what they're doing; otherwise they'll be out in the not too distant future.
