In a radical departure from hallowed Columbia Sussex tradition, the Las Vegas Tropicana has discovered the concept of the promotional allowance. Presumably Tropicana Entertainment co-prexy Scott Butera gets credit for talking boss William J. Yung III into doing some risky, out-of-the-box type things like … marketing and even — Gasp! — promos, some of them fairly proactive. I mean, we’re talking about the company that yanked out the “free slot pull” promo two days after taking over the Trop, back in early ’07.
Nah, my only beef (and “beef” is the operative word) with the Sunday-Thursday “Roll 4 Gas” promo is that three of a kind gets you a free buffet for two. Seriously, is this a promo — or a punishment? I’ve eaten at that buffet. It’s the worst I’ve had in town and you could grow a beard waiting for your server to put in an appearance. To add insult to injury, prices have gone up quite a bit — 22%, in fact.
The Trop could put its own spin on the Wal-Mart slogan and go with, “Always rollin’ up prices.” Except that the disembodied yellow dot-head would have to wear a frown in place of a smile.
