Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Rooms on Strip widely available for latecoming revelers

With eleventh-hour room reservations available at many of the Strip's top hotels, latecomers hoping to crash America's Party could be in luck this New Year's Eve.

Calls placed Monday afternoon to a dozen of Las Vegas' best-known hotels revealed rooms were widely available for a two-night stay beginning today.

Although rates and availability varied with each property, Bally's, Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, The Mirage, New York-New York, Paris Las Vegas and The Venetian each had rooms available over the holiday.

Off-Strip properties, including the Palms, Hard Rock Hotel and Rio, did not have rooms available for a Tuesday check-in, however.

Although the bulk of the city's hotel inventory was sold-out over the New Year's period a year ago, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Vice President Rob Powers said Monday changes in booking patterns have made it more difficult to speculate on how many people could make a last-minute decision to stay in one of the city's approximately 127,000 hotel rooms.

Overall, Powers expects 270,000 to 290,000 out-of-town visitors this year; the city drew approximately 289,000 guests for New Year's Eve 2001.

"We'll definitely be in the mid- to high-90s (percent occupancy range), and if we get close to that 290,000 visitor count we should be close to sold-out," Powers said. "It's harder to project now because people are booking rooms so much later than they used to."

The rash of last-minute bookings also led the authority to pass on releasing its traditional projected economic impact for the holiday.

"These days room rates are all over the map and there's so much volatility in visitor spending that we just don't feel comfortable giving an estimate," Powers explained. Last year's four-day New Year's Eve weekend had an estimated nongaming economic impact of about $167 million.

Mary Anne Beaman, who oversees event programming for Las Vegas Events, said Monday she's confident the city's holiday attractions will draw last-minute visitors to Las Vegas. Tonight's scheduled fireworks show, a Fox television special at The Venetian and various concerts around the city should each drive people to town before tonight, Beaman said.

"Regardless of what we do, this city is always going to get tourism over New Year's Eve," Beaman said. "But we think events like America's Party will help to drive that last 5 percent toward filling the city's hotel rooms."

Both Powers and Beaman added the holiday's benefits won't end once the smoke from tonight's fireworks clears. Last year, Las Vegas garnered an estimated $2.5 million in free media exposure simply by making video footage of its fireworks display available to worldwide news outlets via satellite television feed. Beaman hopes to generate similar awareness again this year.

"It's exciting to see it all coming together," Beaman said Monday as she watched workers load pyrotechnics atop the Excalibur, one of 11 fireworks launch sites. "I can't wait for all of the world to see this show take place on Las Vegas' multi-billion dollar stage."

The holiday's economic benefits are also expected to spill over to other local businesses. The Yellow, Checker and Star cab companies will each put about 20 extra taxis on the street tonight, while Scott Hanning, manager of two Lee's Discount Liquor stores, expects New Year's Eve will be his second-busiest sales day of the year.

"We'll see more people and do more business Tuesday than we would over a five-day period in a slower month like August," said Hanning, who added vodka seems to be the unofficial liquor of choice among local revelers this year.