Is Sin City dying? Fox News reports via the New York Post,
Tipping in Las Vegas drops drastically — tourists say service doesn’t match higher costs.
Apparently, traffic to the city is down about 10 percent from a year ago. The U.K. Daily Mail has a longer take on the subject,
Latest disturbing sign Las Vegas is dying amid soaring prices and Trump tourism boycotts.
They’re blaming Trump for the drop in international visitors. Apparently, foreigners (especially Canadians) hate Trump and are staying away from Vegas in droves, goes the claim.
I confess that I haven’t been to Las Vegas in a full quarter century. Revealed preference, I suppose. In my first visit to the town back in the 1990’s, I encountered the dying days of the “old Las Vegas.” Cheap hotel rooms (I stayed at the soon-to-be-demolished original Aladdin), cheap food (shrimp cocktails, steak dinners, buffets), were designed to get tourists into town and gambling at the casino, where the money was made.
Just a few short years later, all signs of the old mob-run town had vanished, as documented in the movie Casino (1995).
Something has happened in the past 25 years since I’ve been away. From the Post,
Guests are pushing back on $18 bottles of water in the minibar and $37 martinis.
Many people in the r/VegasLocals thread agree.
Said one Redditor, “Twenty-five-dollar drinks … $30 pancakes, $35 burgers … and on top of it you have to tip?”
Yikes! I have no plans to hurry back.
