A second viewpoint

Implications: CES has grown into one of the biggest shows in the country and certainly in Las Vegas

Analysis: CES is a great convention for casino/hotel owners because it is scheduled in an historically slow time of year for Vegas. Having said that, let me take you through the experiences I had with CES and COMDEX, back when I operated the hotel side of the business at was then called the Flamingo Hilton. We had 4,000 rooms and did exactly what Ron Lodge was alluding to in his article. We jacked the rates up, sometimes double if the market could handle it. BUT, let me tell you that due to the total lack of slot play and minimal table games play, we still made less money at the end of the day than in a "normal" midweek period. I would emphasize that most properties call themselves casino/hotels since that is the order of profit that those departments fall in, specifically slots. Now, if you are a slot house such as what the Flamingo was, we could not make up the revenue differential from the dramatic decrease in gaming revenue. So room rates will continue to migrate up unless a couple of things happen, move CES to an even larger distressed period such as december where the convention customer is not displacing a superior casino customer. The second event that could happen but I doubt will, is that the CES customer becomes a better casino customer and risks a little money at the gaming tables and slots. Barring those events, I believe that CES still has a great thing going, with far superior food product, better accomodations and pretty much having the city to themselves. Let's see what the future holds for these types of events...