Las Vegas – w sto lat od pustyni do imperium hotelarskiego

Abstract

In times of far reaching changes and development in the hospitality industry within the last decade (mergers, takeovers, expansion) it seemed of value to do research on one of its most interesting examples. Though Las Vegas, its image and rapid evolution to a capital of casino hotels, are all well known to the scientific discipline of hospitality they hardly ever have been analyzed in Poland. Out of the simple awareness of the existence of casino hotels in such concentration and scale arose the necessity of a very close approach towards the processes and factors that influenced and drove the city to its today’s appearance. Las Vegas can prove itself of only but exactly one century of history as a city but has grown to a size of 535 thousands inhabitants (1.6 Million in the metropolitan area) with 131 000 hotel rooms. The in July 2004 conducted research focuses on the most representative parts of the city meaning the Las Vegas Blvd. (the Strip) and Downtown. Receiving city rights in 1905 after nearly 150 years of insignificant past as oasis and Mormon mission Las Vegas served in its very beginning as a kind of a refuge for gamblers and railroad developers. Although the land surrounding the railroad installations, workshops and sidings was sold in one day, laying ground to a new city, it needed over 25 years until obscure gambling shacks and halls started their transformation into casino hotels. Legalized gambling in the State of Nevada prepared the ground for opening casinos, but the construction of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in 1931 set off the first major development in the city. The first small gambling halls which were situated in Downtown became casino hotels over the years. The initial ground parcellation from 1905 which divided the terrain of the city center in squares not bigger than 256 to 366 feet soon became to small and narrow for further expansion. Therefore the existing casinos were limited to maximum one city block. Unclaimed terrain south of the city limits still offered lots of space in the 1940s for the city itself grew mainly to the north and north-west. With gambling legal in Nevada and the fast growing Las Vegas new investors appeared who represented a different marketing strategy from just running a casino with hotel rooms. Their idea was a resort casino hotel. It was to create a hotel by operating a casino but also creating a place for refuge and relaxation in the unwelcoming desert on the way from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. The predecessor was El Rancho (1942), followed by the Flamingo (1946). Slowly a tendency in creating themed resorts became apparent. The 1950s meant a boom for the street which became known as The Strip and which is part of the Highway 91 linking Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. More and more casino resorts received a themed interior decoration. The in 1972 opened Circus Circus was the first casino hotel to become a fully themed resort and regarding a substantial increase in funds invested from then on to open a casino resort, as well as the size of the property and the scale of an enterprise, it marked the beginning of a new era on the Strip: the era of the megaresort. In the 1940s the casinos along the Strip counted between 100 and 300 rooms. One can speak of the first phase of Strip exploration between the later Sahara Ave.-Sands Ave. The 1950s are characteristic through a large number of low capacity casinos all along the Strip occupying most of the available land. The casinos’ capacity is rather initial so the process can be called a subphase of exploration. The 1960s are the second exploration phase by developing the Strip between Sands Ave. and Flamingo Rd. with a concentration around the Strip- -Flamingo Rd. crossroads and strengthening and increasing the capacity within the first exploration area. The on following decade (1971–1980) – the initiation of the megaresort era – is significant through a strong capacity increase in the areas of the two first phases exceeding 1000 rooms per casino in area I and 2000 per casino in area II. The years 1981–1990 signalize an imminent third exploration phase around the Strip-Tropicana Ave. crossroads by an augmentation in the average hotel room number per resort and by extending the Strip to the north to Main Street. The first casino hotel with more than 3000 rooms (The Mirage) was opened during that period. The years 1991–2000 are significant through the opening of a large number of high capacity resorts with over 2000 rooms (Luxor, New York New York), over 3000 rooms (Treasure Island, Monte Carlo, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Venetian, Paris Las Vegas), more than 4000 and 5000 rooms (respectively Excalibur and MGM Grand) from Flamingo Rd. to Tropicana Ave and on to Koval Ln. During the years 2001–2005 the dynamics of the Strip exploration seems to be weakening. The major hospitality investments in this time were the enlargement of the Stratosphere and opening of the new Wynn Las Vegas. No signs of further development south of Mandalay Bay can be determined at this time. In the today’s Las Vegas hospitality concentrates strongly around the South Strip and with less intensity around the North Strip. Analyzing the city’s hospitality development during at least the last 70 years a clearly south-directed exploration is being revealed with a divergence in development between Downtown and the Strip. The reasons might be as mentioned above: the lack of space for expansion in the densely developed Downtown. The Strip counts 70 135 rooms out of the city’s 131 000 and Downtown has them only 7895. Included charts show the comparative figures of the two hospitality development areas in Las Vegas. An interesting aspect is the undertaking of measures for creating a large reception base for congress tourists. Meeting amenities of the Strip resorts successfully compete with the Las Vegas Convention Center which is of the largest buildings in the world for conference and exhibition purposes. After having presented in short words the major phases of the Las Vegas development, a brief characteristic of the city as it is today: as a city of a little bit more than 1.5 Million inhabitants in the metro area it has one of the largest hospitality potential in the world. It receives yearly three fourths of tourists visiting a middle-sized country in Central East Europe (based on Poland 2004, 37.3 Million in Las Vegas in the same year) and it has nearly twice the hotel capacity at its disposal (based on Poland 2004). The terrorist attack from 9.11.2001 which meant a world tourism recession for months had almost no negative impact on the tourist flow in Las Vegas. They caused of course a decrease in occupancy rates and threw back revenues from hospitality, but at the end of 2001 the situation was back to normal. This proves the economic stability of Las Vegas, which development in hospitality has been slowing down during the past years but means no substantial decrease or crisis to the city. A SWOT analysis of the current situation combined with ranking the city’s tourism and hospitality status within a BCG matrix reveals its clear leader position on the market. A prognosis for the future may be despite the slowed down and even stagnating development a continuous success in hospitality.