Vegas’ mixed message; China puts the squeeze on Macao

Is the Las Vegas Strip coming back? Yes and no, to judge by hotel rates for the October 18-24 period. They’re 50% 0ff last year’s but with a severe dichotomy between weekdays and weekends. For instance, Las Vegas Sands (even without Palazzo midweek) is -63% on weekdays, -15% on weekends. Wynncore is almost identical: -63% weekdays, -16% weekends. Caesars Entertainment‘s midweek numbers are a little more respectable—49% down—but it’s 30% off the pace on weekends, while MGM Resorts International is -56% midweek and -31% weekends. Even so, at least according to MGM, it’s cheaper to keep a hotel open, even at greatly diminished occupancy, than to shutter it. But with no conventions on the schedule, you can see how badly that’s hurting the resorts across the board, even Wynn Resorts, which only recently starting vying for conventioneers. Can the Strip get by on leisure travelers? It has no choice.

Indicative of this, Caesars announced the Oct. 8 reopening of Planet Hollywood—with weekend-only hotel bookings. At least the spa and (more importantly) the William Hill sports book. Meanwhile, it’s official that Virgin Hotel is going to open on Jan. 15. It’s been the worst-kept secret in town, after Hilton Curio‘s Web site blabbed about it a couple of months back. This is hardly the end of the world. Far from it. The New Year’s Eve hubbub having died down, Virgin will have the headlines to itself and a clearer runway to establishing a Vegas identity. Besides, even if the brand equity is unclear at this point, there should be plenty of novelty factor going for Virgin, bringing a solid first wave of business. Also, convention ought to be coming back at that point and it’s hoped that Coronavirus will have abated. (Perhaps the biggest imponderable of all.) Virgin will be replete with exotic eateries, so it will be a must-visit for the foodie crowd, not to mention everybody curious to see what the new look of the former Hard Rock Hotel will be.