HOTELS with CASINOS
05_089620_ch01.qxd 7/26/07 10:46 AM Page 36 PART ONE ACCOMMODATIONS and CASINOS WHERE to STAY: Basic Choices LAS VEGAS HAS AN ASTOUNDING INVENTORY of about 137,000 hotel rooms. Washington, D.C., by way of contrast has 31,000. Occu- pancy rates are over 98% on weekends and average 92% for the whole week, compared to a national average of 61%. By 2010 it’s projected that the number of rooms in Las Vegas will top 170,000. As the memorable line from Field of Dreams suggests, “If you build it, they will come.” THE LAS VEGAS STRIP AND DOWNTOWN FROM A VISITOR’S PERSPECTIVE, Las Vegas is more or less a small town that’s fairly easy to get around. Most of the major hotels and casinos are in two areas: downtown and on Las Vegas Boulevard, known as the Strip. The downtown hotels and casinos are often characterized as older and smaller than those on the Strip. While this is true in a general sense, there are both large and elegant hotels downtown. What really differentiates downtown is the incredible concentration of casinos and hotels in a relatively small area. Along Fremont Street, downtown’s main thoroughfare, the casinos present a continuous, dazzling galaxy of neon and twinkling lights for more than four city blocks. Known as Glitter Gulch, these several dozen gambling emporiums are sand- wiched together in colorful profusion in an area barely larger than a parking COPYRIGHTEDlot at a good-sized shopping mall. MATERIAL Contrast in the size, style, elegance, and presentation of the down- town casinos provides a varied mix, combining extravagant luxury and cosmopolitan sophistication with an Old West–boomtown deca- dence.
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