Average Joe can no longer afford Vegas

Roger Strahan, Denton, Texas

Sunday, June 8, 2008 | 2:03 a.m.

Regarding a story in Thursday’s Las Vegas Sun, “Big-picture thinkers weigh in on gaming’s fiscal outlook”:

As a travel agent, property owner and frequent visitor, I can tell you that a lot of the problems Las Vegas has, it has brought on itself. The property owners demolished the moderately priced hotels, planning high-dollar condo-tel developments. That has frozen out the casual working-class visitor who would come for a long weekend. For example, the Stardust and the Frontier are both gone, with nothing in their place.

Then you have the “investment professionals” stating that the cost of driving to Vegas is only a couple of drinks more and that’s keeping people home. No, it’s much more. Fuel costs have driven up everything.

Food is up 40 percent. Electricity costs are skyrocketing. Taxes are jumping and real estate values are in decline. Then you have the additional cost of commuting to work as companies are cutting employment. Add to that the fact that many homeowners are upside down on their homes, and the notes are coming due.

It’s not the cost of driving to Vegas that’s killing the drive-in visitor, it’s the entire economic situation. The visitor has much less disposable income, and Vegas has intentionally driven up the cost of staying there.

For those farther away, air fares are up more than 200 percent from a year ago, and the airlines are adding all sorts of fees while cutting flights. That will stop the casual visitor who used to come several times a year to gamble.

Las Vegas is always going to try to attract the high-dollar roller, the glitzy, the glamorous. However, unless Las Vegas remembers all those visitors who built the city into what it is, and figures out a way to bring them back, the problems will continue.