Las Vegas - Mecca of Tourism

Its always wonderful to visit Las Vegas, the Disneyland for adults. The city and sites created in a desert, with its own unique economic model, stands testimony to the American Dream that created money at places that were once considered wastelands.

I have been visiting Las Vegas since 1996 and its been amazing to see how the number of hotels getting added to the skyline of The Strip just does'nt seem to stop. Spotted a few more new hotels coming up on a visit a couple of weeks ago, that is after I saw many more new hotels already added since my last visit in 2002. On my first visit in 1996 I was all ready to swear that The Strip had more (equivalent) hotel rooms than the whole of India. In 2002 I saw a few new hotels like the Venetian and the Bellagio, and this time a whole new Las Vegas downtown!

Some (serious) trivia about Las Vegas, that will remind us about this huge magnet that attracts hordes of visitors each year to its glittering neon lights:

• Over 40 M visitors each year
• Has more than 150,000 hotel rooms in an area of a few sq km (adding 2-8K new rooms each year)
• Hosts over 22,000 conventions a year. Mind boggling to even know how many that is each day!

Here's many more astonishing Las Vegas Numbers at the University of Nevada ( http://cber.unlv.edu/tour.html )website.

And whats the recession done to Las Vegas?

Seems not very much on the surface; 3M visitors in March; hotel occupancy down only @ 10-15%; didnt see much effect on the attendance at the CTIA show, many more hotel rooms getting added this year! But hey, 10-15% drop is big in the hotel industry, where 70% occupancy for break-even is the norm! Hotels have already announced layoffs! Cab Drivers are doing @ 25 trips a day as compared to 45 each day - no wonder they are not too happy about the Las Vegas Monorail System. For the sake of a greener earth, hope this system succeeds - do you really need a car in the sights and sounds (of money) of Vegas!

Here's wishing all of you a great night at the heights of the open-air, Voodoo Lounge at the Rio Hotel & Casino where you can soak in the sights of The Strip from close to heaven!