Summary
When Marnell first started dreaming of the M resort he felt that several factors would play well for his property
Analysis
When Tony Marnell started thinking about the M resort, he was thinking about a couple of factors that would help his property. First, he would now be the first property that the california crowd would have access to off the route 15 corridor. This was the first opportunity for this clientile to gamble beyond primm and Jean. Second, he anticipated that the southern highlands community would be built around the resort thus offering a built in, high income crowd right at his doorstep. The third key to success was to drive the Southpointe and Green Valley Ranch customer to this property as locationally many of these customers would be equidistant to the properties mentioned. Of course, the continual growth of Las Vegas, in general, was another factor.
So, lets see how the formula is looking with a month until opening. California traffic is down significantly and those that do come expect deep discounts. Southern Highlands has not grown as quickly as people have thought due to the economy, so the population base around this casino is less than anticipated. Whether this property can take traffic from Southpointe and GVR remains to be seen as promotions will be critical to move this clientile. It will be interesting to see how expansively they promote the property through promotions. Finally, the migration into Las Vegas has slowed dramatically and whether they are new gamers or not remains to be seen.
All in all, the formula is not in place to make this property a winner however over time it could end up being a fairly competent competitor in the market.
