Las Vegas is “a market notorious for some of the highest resort fees anywhere.” So writes Hotelsmag.com’s Juliana Shallcross. Big Gaming needn’t be too worried: The Hotel Advertising Transparency Act of 2019 has gone absolutely nowhere in the supposedly liberal House of Representatives, proving that Democrats are as beholden to bidness 
interests as they accuse Republicans of being. So casino-hotels will be able to go on stashing fees for the “use” of that gym you didn’t visit or for the in-room phone you didn’t pick up or even for the ‘free’ newspaper you didn’t read, let alone request. As you are undoubtedly aware, the casino industry’s favorite revenue-capture tactic of the day is to advertise low room rates, then smack you upside the head with outlandish resort fees once you’ve closed the deal.
Not everybody in the industry thinks this is smart or good business. R.W. Baird Senior Research Analyst Michael Bellisario says “it’s more about a level playing field. Customers will be comparing the price they will actually pay, not a headline price, and from the owner’s perspective, it’s most beneficial to those who are already generally complying with that versus not telling what the actual rate is until you have to click through three times.” Adds Virgin Hotels CEO Raul Leal, “When we launched, we looked and understood that items like the 
resort fee don’t dramatically add to our bottom line, but what they are is a significant displeasure to guests.” Unfortunately, he is the minority, what with CEOs like Marriott‘s Arne Sorensen saying resort fees are here to stay, customer be damned.
Says one resort-fee apologist, Andrea Grigg, managing director of asset management services for Jones Lang LaSalle, “how do we communicate with those clients the value-add to ensure that everyone takes advantage of it?” There is no value-add, lady. That’s why customers are so displeased. They’re paying twice for what they were already getting. When the day comes that customers can opt out of the ‘amenities’ they’re supposedly paying for with resort fees, then we can about ‘value-add.’
In the meantime, while politics won’t budge resort fees, revenue troubles in the hotel industry may cause them to become more entrenched. As statistician David Eisen writes, “Turns out, those pesky costs are increasing globally and showing little sign of relenting.” Nationwide, 
revenue per available room was flat for most of last year. Meanwhile, costs crept up 2%, driven particularly by labor. The downside of high employment: Cheap workers are hard to find. Except for utilities, in fact, everything is getting costlier, whether it’s marketing or maintenance. As a consequence, profitability is flat and trending downward.
Eisen offers several potential fixes, the most depressing being “rethinking daily housekeeping to drive down expense.” Yeah, Columbia Sussex did that pretty radically at the Tropicana Las Vegas and made it very difficult for subsequent owners to redeem the property’s image. That’s an extreme instance but you get the idea (dirty hotel rooms). Argues Eisen, “inertia is not a dependable strategy.” He doesn’t suggest raising resort fees but somebody is going to read that article and reach that conclusion.
* The era of the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas may be ending but that doesn’t mean she’s going out quietly. Jan. 30-Feb. 2, the HRH will be presenting live music simultaneously in multiple venues. The festivities will continue 
until 3 a.m. Feb. 3, at which point the doors will close, not to reopen until the property has been fully remade as a Virgin Hotel. There are some things the new owners won’t be able to change, like putting the outwardly ugly (inwardly handsome) The Joint smack in front of the hotel, marring its once-beautiful sightlines, or constructing new, luxury suites whose best view was of the inside of a parking garage. We can thank former CEO Ed Scheetz for those blunders. But Virgin is still inheriting a Rolls-Royce only slightly in need of a tuneup. The Los Angeles Times revisits 30 years of storied HRH history … yes, including the death of John Entwistle. You didn’t think they were going to leave that out, did you?
* Biometrics and artificial-intelligence were the fodder of a recent panel discussion in Las Vegas. Rationalizations for the use of these privacy-
invading technologies ran rampant. It was difficult not to glean the impression that the gaming industry—and regulators—haven’t fully grasped the ramifications of this tech. The prize for understatement goes to National Center for Responsible Gaming Chairman Alan Feldman, who asked, “will technology reduce or even increase problem gambling? What do customers and employees want? And at what cost? We need to find a balance.” Indeed they do.
Jottings: There may be a new compact in the offing in Florida. The Seminole Tribe would put $3 billion into state coffers over a four-year period. In return, the state would crack down on parimutuels offering banked card games, a real sore point with the Seminoles. Sounds like a good deal; don’t screw it up, Lege … No new casinos in Mexico. That’s the message coming from President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obradors, who calls casinos “shameful.” No, tell us how 
you really feel, Mr. President … Major League Baseball is swearing off “direct revenue” participation in sports betting, although it’s not clear whether that includes ‘integrity fees’ … Former California regulator Richard Schuetz puts a beat-down on Golden State card rooms, which he brands “the sleaziest legal gaming sector in the United States.” Politicians who enable aforementioned sleaze—especially Democrats—don’t get off lightly either: “It seems Adam Gray and Bill Dodd want to be recognized as the legislative leaders in gaming, and I can only conclude they’re either totally corrupt, inept, or intellectually lost.”
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