A P R I L   2 0 0 1 

FEATURES

Not just soap and towels anymore
Hotel-casinos cater to more discriminating visitors with upscale room amenities.
By Michael Paskevich

Even those folk unwilling to venture a Las Vegas vacation during the swinging '60s or headliner-heavy 1970s still understood a few things about America's gambling hub. 

They knew that restaurants and buffets were cheap and plentiful, and that renting a room in Las Vegas would be less expensive than settling into one of those undistinguished motels that seemingly encircle every theme park and natural attraction across the country.

But if adults weren't into gambling - in some cases because of concerns about keeping underage occupants of the family station wagon entertained - Las Vegas didn't offer much more than dreams of instant riches.

The low-cost and frills-free rooms on the Strip were nothing special when compared with today's amenities-driven standard rooms, located in both grandiose new resorts and veteran hotel-casinos seeking to keep pace with the well-funded upstarts.

This era's rooms are decidedly more sophisticated and comfort-oriented, signaling the demise of drab little hideaways and an equally old-fashioned philosophy geared at keeping customers in the casinos as long as possible. It will shock no one that the more time people invest on games of chance, the greater the potential for helping the hotel's bottom line.

And this attitude reigned for decades, confirms Jim Seagrave, director of publicity and marketing for the venerable Stardust, a megaresort of its own when it opened in 1958 with flashy neon signage that dominated the lengthy hotel's entire frontage.

"A room was just considered like any other room ... just a place to rest," said Seagrave. "Even 20 years ago, the idea all over town was that [hotel management] didn't want you to spend too much time in your room. The basic idea was to make [guests] want to spend more time in the casino, at a hotel restaurant or seeing Lido de Paris before returning to the slots or tables."

Not that they were missing much in the room that they hadn't already seen or experienced.

A typical mid-'70s room would be decorated with dark floral curtains, maybe a television with a bolted-down remote control, a concave mattress and "take-away" items, such as a ballpoint pen, a hotel logo tablet and ashtray to indirectly promote the place to friends back home. And few can forget such charming amenities as coarse and tiny white towels, droopy shower curtains and those stonelike slabs of so-called soap sealed in sturdy wax paper.

Seagrave recalled a one-time controversy over whether to even put televisions in rooms. "Some people thought it was crazy to give someone the chance to just watch television and relax when they could be playing in the casinos."

Great expectations
Now, all that's changed as today's typical tourist is better traveled and more attuned to the little extras a hotel can provide.
"As Vegas has boomed, the guest expectancy levels have escalated as well," he noted.

"In fact, people today don't think about amenities. Extra touches are considered the norm."

The ongoing arrival of larger, more elaborate hotels has speeded the death of rental room minimalism.

"Even hotels that have been here for years know the old philosophy is gone," said Seagrave. "The idea is to make the room as comfortable as possible, from voice-mail messaging to shower caps and pay-per-view events. Every hotel focuses on amenities, and we're basically identical to one another in trying to provide guests with nice things."

Which hotel has the best in-room amenities will remain a source of debate, but The Venetian hotel-casino can be ranked with the best of them.

"We're the first all-suite hotel in Las Vegas," noted Venetian publicist Kurt Ouchida, "and [we] knew that the demand for luxury keeps climbing. So we wanted to give [guests] the best product, and with an occupancy rate of 98 percent, the rooms are an integral part of our revenues."

Instead of the standard 365-square-foot rooms of the past, living space measures 700 square feet in any of The Venetian's 3,036 rooms, which highlight rich-looking fixtures and fabrics in spaces sizeable enough to feature the Strip's first sunken living rooms. "We also added the Strip's first minibars, which are computerized, and we are building our business traveler base because each room has a 56K data port to hook up a laptop computer. Each room also has hookups for fax and copy machines," Ouchida said.

The vinyl bathrooms of yesteryear have given way to marble floors and vanity tops, glass-enclosed showers (and separate tubs and water closet toilets) along with makeup tables and magnified mirrors. Wall sconces soften the lighting and wrought-iron railing separates living spaces from bedrooms equipped with armoires, a self-coded safe and beds with draped canopies and soft lighting.

There's a 27-inch color TV with cable service, pay-per-view movies and channels devoted to learning the basics of gambling or watching whether your keno numbers have come up. Ouchida noted that there's little worry about theft these days because with credit card numbers, properties can track down visitors and add charges as needed.

The Luxor hotel offers similar room amenities, as well as ironing boards, irons and hair driers, according to publicist Hillary Smoot-Bernstein. She added that all of the Luxor's rooms are set for renovation and added amenities beginning this summer.

Name-brand lotions, shampoos and conditioners are now mainstays in Strip hotels, replacing the need to pack such essentials or endure another shower battle with those small, body-The Venetian and Paris Las Vegas resorts are considered among today's best for in-room amenities. Both were influenced by the upscale extras that first surfaced at the Bellagio resort.

Bellagio housekeepers service all 3,000 rooms twice daily - no other Las Vegas resort does so - and each room is fitted with triple sheets and silky robes for lounging. Bellagio public relations director Jackie Dennis notes all rooms will soon feature minibars with infrared billing systems.

"We set a new standard for amenities when Bellagio opened," says Dennis, "and that means we will continue to upgrade our rooms to keep our guests satisfied. They expect nothing but the best when they come here, so it's our job to make sure it stays that way."

Even more unique comforts and conveniences are expected in the near future. The Aladdin hotel-casino was the first Las Vegas resort to offer dedicated modem ports with high-speed Internet access.

"I think the next big move will be having high-speed Internet access computers in every room," said the Stardust's Seagrave. "So many people use computers now and like to stay in touch with their e-mails even while on vacation. I think computers will be the standard in the near future."

Paris Las Vegas recently unveiled 200 computers in a partnership with Vegas-based In-Room.com - the plan is to link hundreds of rooms in properties owned by Park Place Entertainment Corp. - and a few hundred portals are already in use in select rooms at The Venetian. The Luxor's Smoot-Bernstein said that in-room computers "are being discussed here" as the next wave in enhancing a visitor's stay and securing their loyalty. 

"In order to compete in this market, we have to provide a room that surpasses the standard," Ouchida said. "People travel so much more these days, and we're always looking for amenities that they would expect to find in a four- or five-star European hotel."

Top of  Page

IGWB Magazine

 Current Issue ~ Subscribe ~ Contact Us ~ Media Kit ~ Advertise

Copyright © 2001 GEM Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. smile-etccard.com