Sunday Morning Coffee — September 7, 2025 — Bring the Viva Back to Vegas

By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV.

There are multiple definitions of lunacy but with our coffee this morning let’s use this one: ‘a wild or extravagant folly or foolishness, such as a ridiculous decision.’ Taking it one step further you can make the assumption that same lunacy, done over and over again, would qualify someone as a lunatic.

If we are referring to Las Vegas resort operators, then they’ve gone cuckoo. Or have they?

On the surface Strip bosses are making it very difficult for middle America, once the backbone of Vegas tourism, to visit us anymore. If it’s true that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered, then the decision makers are getting awfully plump in their corporate towers.

Lately the national media, at just about every turn, keeps reinforcing that Vegas is in the midst of a tourism slump.

And if you look at the numbers it’s tough to argue: in July, visitation to our desert paradise was off a steep 12% from a year ago. It was the second straight month of a double-digit decline. Putting aside how that might impact the resort/casino balance sheet, it certainly takes a toll on the local labor force just trying to make ends meet. In fact, our 6% unemployment rate is the third highest in the country of metro areas in excess of a million in population. Vegas has 2.4 million permanent residents, a good many of whom feed off the tourism/hospitality industry.

What really got my attention last week was a statistic published by AAA on the top 10 U.S destinations for a Labor Day trip. Like Alabama in college football rankings, Vegas has been habitually among the top two or three, along with Orlando and New York City, for the end of summer holiday weekend visit.

This year Vegas dropped to number ten in visitation according to AAA, a fall almost as steep as Alabama in the college football polls after getting tomahawked by Florida State. The top nine in Labor Day weekend travel: Seattle, somehow for some reason, leaped to number one followed by the regular staples Orlando and New York then Boston, Anchorage, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and Miami, all in front of Las Vegas. Anchorage at number five? If it’s good enough for a romantic getaway for Trump and Putin, the rest of the country took notice that Anchorage must be the place to be.

The corpulent Vegas casino operators have been getting fat for a while charging prices that make no sense and ultimately, as proven this year, will backfire. Airfares here are no longer a bargain, neither are hotel rooms, taxi or ride share fares, dining or entertainment. In fact, they all fly in the face of being the bargain around which this town was built. Want a buffet? By and large Covid put an end to them and they are now as common as a friendly slot machine. However, you can still find the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace where dinner will set you back a cool $85 plus/plus. And in the greed mode, the price on Friday and Saturday jumps to $88 for absolutely no reason. Seemingly, the damage is pretty much self-inflicted.

We had dinner Friday night with friends from our former home of Birmingham, AL. They came in for a quick weekend getaway. Before they even left their driveway this trip had cost them over $2200, not including air. They bought tough to get tickets for the Eagles at the Sphere on the secondary market for $900 each; then $400 for two Wizard of Oz movie seats also at the Sphere. Toss in another $350 to see Rob Thomas—I had to look him up—it appears he was part of Matchbox Twenty back in the day, which wasn’t my day. So that’s $2500 before even getting on the airplane. And three nights at The Venetian was another $1500. Factor in meals and a couple of $12 bottles of water from the room fridge, never mind $25 cocktails at the bar, and the three days are over $5k even before the first toss of dice. Our friends make a good living, but five grand is five grand and not sustainable. A once a year visit now becomes once every three years, if that often.

Don’t forget the controversial resort fees, first introduced at the Rio in 1997 at $3 a night which now runs anywhere from $35-$55 a day under the guise of wi-fi, pool and health club access and of course the all-important free local and toll-free dialing that no one uses. Really Vegas is that the best you can do? Heck, if those dollars are so important just disguise it and roll them into the room rates.

Parking, which used to be free just to get visitors into the casino, now runs from $20-$25 a day. Valet the vehicle for $40.

And now the porky execs, who seemingly have a secret desire to become hogs for slaughter, have introduced surge pricing a la Lyft and Uber. Get this: according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal a visitor to MGM Grand bought a Miller Lite inside the resort sundry store last Saturday afternoon. He bought another one Saturday night for $2 more. A visitor from Texas bought a Snickers and Gatorade inside of Caesars Palace for $10. Her husband went back the next day, bought the same two items but this time it was $14. And the beat goes on. These days Walgreens and CVS on the Strip are advertising ‘consistent prices’ for your beer, wine, water, soda and snacks. And presumably Saturday night condoms are considerably more expensive than on a Tuesday.

Resorts World, in a reach to try and counter the competitive corporate greed, dropped their resort fee and parking charges for the summer but enjoy it while you can. On Wednesday they return. Interestingly the three Strip properties that don’t charge fees or parking are not corporate but privately owned: Alex Meruelo owns the Sahara and ninety-year-old Phil Ruffin Treasure Island and Circus Circus. Not pressured by shareholders they are showing some perceptive consumer sensitively and promoting such. (Digressing for a moment, it’s the same Mr. Ruffin who in 1997 in Wichita, Kansas, hired me on a Friday and fired me Monday morning. At least I had the weekend off. But we’ll save that ditty for another time.)

I played golf a week ago with a Caesars gaming executive who told me they are having a strong third quarter in the casino as a steady influx of pampered high rollers have kept gaming revenue about equal to a year ago despite the visitation decline. The so-called whales can care less about the cost of rooms or food or just about anything while they are here as everything is comped in return for large donations to the casino. I asked my colleague if Caesars could feel the pinch of middle America that was missing. “It’s massive,” he said. A host at Joe’s Stone Crab inferred the same.

That “massive” loss can’t be totally attributed to operator greed. Canadian visitation is down a whopping 18% and Mexico half of that. They take exception to what they believe is American political arrogance aimed at them. Tariffs have allegedly taken a toll on South American and European visitors. Passengers from the UK are off 9%, while domestically there tends to be an uneasy concern about jobs and the American economy particularly among the middle class, a very important Vegas demographic, who are feeling financially squeezed resulting in a decline in leisure fun travel.

So now we head into the fall which is normally a strong period for Las Vegas. In fact, convention bookings, slow this summer, are already up about a percent for the coming months. The weather turns, the sports books will be hooting and hollering during football season while the Raiders host 60,000 fans a game with over 60% from outside of the local market. In years past that would be reason for tourism optimism. But now uncertainty remains as long as the fleecing continues.

In 1978 when Atlantic City, New Jersey, introduced casino gaming, becoming the first domestic competition to Nevada, it was projected by some to be the beginning of the end of Vegas. Actually the contrary happened when Atlantic City whet the appetite of consumers to visit Vegas, considered the major league of casino gambling. And the same continued as other states and Native American tribes also got into the gambling business. Vegas thrived; everyone wanted to visit the big time that was so much more than just a casino: dining, world class entertainment and everything you did here, stayed here. And there was a lot to do at reasonable costs.

But now Vegas needs to reinvent itself. It’s never lost the moniker of a party town but now it’s a very expensive party town for those flush enough to pay the tab. From our side of the corporate tower, the resort and casino visitors, even locals like us, now think twice before a night out on the Strip. Leora Azoulay, who owns a local travel destination management company told the Review-Journal: “We can all remember the old days when you went to Circus Circus for the $1.99 buffet. I don’t think any of us are expecting that again. But they’ve got to stop the gouging. We see and read that Vegas is struggling right now and that tourism is way down. I know there is a political aspect to it, but the fact is the people are burned out (by pricing).”

Personally this whole scenario saddens me, not so much as a resident for the last seven years but as a long time Las Vegas fan. When my dad took me to the Strip for the first time in 1974 and the hundred or so trips since then, the feeling I had whenever I came here is tough to describe. It was my rumpus room of life. Everything I wanted, everything I enjoyed—the shows, the sports gambling, a few quid on the blackjack and craps tables, dining and drinking was at my grasp for a couple of days. And I had more fun and laughs over the years than should be legal. It really was a ticket away from reality which wasn’t all that bad, but little doses of Vegas was better. As both a resident now and longtime Vegas booster it’s pretty obvious corporate greed is ruining what once was America’s affordable adult playground.

But maybe there is some hope after all. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority unveiled a new $35 million nationwide advertising campaign that debuted Thursday night during the Dallas-Philadelphia NFL spit fest. Promote as you will but if you keep doing the same thing over and over again it’s lunacy. Caesars responded this week offering a $300 special rate for three of its properties: Flamingo, Harrah’s and The Linq which includes all taxes and fees for a two-night stay and $200 worth of food. And the Sahara jumped in with room rates of $69 a night and dining credits. That’s a really good start. Then on Thursday Bill Hornbuckle, president and CEO of MGM Grand Resorts told CNBC that yes Las Vegas has had a “tough summer” and things will be changing. “I think there’s lessons to be learned in terms of value and value creation,” Hornbuckle said and added, “We let the narrative get away from us and shame on us. We need to do a better job, but we have not lost track of who and what we are and where we are going.”

Great and encouraging words that need to be turned in action. But what if the casino moguls really don’t care? We can make a case for that too by looking at the airline industry now charging for checked luggage and premium seats. Their annual return is multi-billions of dollars. While specific resort and casino fees are not detailed in casino line-item public financial statements, economists suggest that in 2024 over $3 billion was collected by resort and parking fees spread over all the properties. That’s a lot of black chips.

Yes, the bosses are getting fat. They feel like we, their backbone, are sitting at the blackjack table with a 16 against their picture card and laughing at us. What they don’t think can happen, but if they keep up this lunacy certainly will, is they hit a four and eight on their way to the slaughter house.

In that case we all bust.

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(No SMC next week. Andi and I are going to London to meet our new granddaughter Harley, who turns a month old tomorrow. No worries, plenty of pictures will be forthcoming. This past week Harley became an American citizen in a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy. I am really looking forward to hearing her recite the Pledge of Allegiance when we get there on Wednesday).

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger