Though Vegas P.R. Flacks Claim Business is Up, Discounted Room Rates at the City's Best Hotels Tell Another Story

The year has been marked so far by a steady drumbeat of announcements from the tourist board of Las Vegas that business in Sin City is spectacular -- specifically, that 2011 was the second best time in years, that hotel occupancy is up and that restaurants are jammed.
 
The people I talk to, who have recently been to Las Vegas, tell me otherwise. And the hotel situation in Las Vegas is better determined not from the p.r. releases, but by looking at the extent of the discounting offered by Vegas' deluxe hotels. If you will go to the booking charts of the super-elegant Aria Hotel, in the City Center development on the Strip (a property whose rates for a suite go up to as much as $399 during peak times), you will find that the Aria is offering nightly rates for a deluxe suite of $109, $119 and $129 on 13 different dates in the month of March; and that it is already offering rates of $129 a night on no fewer than 18 dates in April -- more than half the month.
 
As for the deluxe Venetian and Palazzo hotels, they are heavily advertising rates of $109 a night, per room, for stays in March and April. And when you then move on to the sub-deluxe category, you find that such hotels as the Luxor are asking as little as $28 a night per room.
 
Those actual prices are a far better indicator of the depressed level of America's gambling capital, affected not simply by a slow economy but by the increased competition for gamblers that is now offered in numerous states that have legalized casino gambling. Objectively, it appears that Las Vegas is offering spectacular deals to sharp-eyed visitors who search for the bargains.