"Can Vegas Make A Comeback?" - Las Vegas In CRISIS As Tourism PLUMMETS To All Time Low
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Summary
Vegas is no longer the place to go if you want to get a good night out. It s time to ask the question, will Vegas ever be as big as it used to be? Rob and Sarah talk about what s going on in Vegas and why it s not as good as it was 25 years ago.
Transcript
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Rip-off Las Vegas faces another huge tourism slump thanks to government shutdown as Americans avoid flying over fears of travel chaos and plane crashes.
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It was another rough month for Las Vegas tourism.
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Strip gaming revenue dropped 4% year over year with downtown down over 11%.
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Visitation fell by 6.5% both for the month and year to date.
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And hotel occupancy on the Strip dropped by 3.2%.
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Even airport traffic and cars entering from California were down.
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Surprisingly, the average daily room rate also slipped below $200 for the first time in a while.
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The only bright spot, convention attendance, was up nearly 11%.
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Is the era of nonstop growth and sky-high prices finally cooling off?
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You know how they have these waitress girls that walk around?
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The amount of surprise we'll be making with that is going to be awesome.
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We take off at 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning yesterday.
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But Tom had a very good dinner we had last night.
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But while we're there, we're looking at MGM's new, what do you call it, the pool party they
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Like, I don't know what it's called, but it's called the Palm Beach or something at the MGM.
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With the pool parties, we may be shutting down now, doing something with it.
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But I asked the guy, I said, let me ask you, how is tourism right now in Vegas?
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We're walking around the tables, nothing, nobody's there.
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So people doing conventions, Vegas is slowly taking over Orlando.
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It used to be Orlando for many years for convention town.
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But Vegas is becoming a convention capital of America today.
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Tom, would you agree with that, that Vegas is it now?
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They've built a lot of stuff there trying to attract the convention crowd back and a lot
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But now, all of a sudden, they don't have the other half of it.
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So to me, when you hear stories like this with Vegas, you're talking to drivers, you're
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talking to different people, you're talking to what people are saying.
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Man, it's just not what it once was 25 years ago.
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So now what companies put Vegas out of business?
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You know who else is putting Vegas out of business in a big way?
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Everybody who's a health podcaster that's got young men not drinking, not smoking, not
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doing, like they're changing the habits of health.
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So you're like, why am I going to go there and do that?
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Chip Wilson and I did a podcast about 10 years ago.
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He says, Patrick, in 20 years, almost everybody in America will be in shape or will know whether
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But you're going to see six packs are no longer going to be a big deal.
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He said, because clothes are going to become smart.
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Clothes, you're going to wear clothes and the clothes are going to tell you, stand up
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He's going to say, we're going to have smart clothes, not smart watches, not smart, smart clothes,
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So who knows what's going to happen to Vegas with the stuff that they're experiencing, right?
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And I just kind of wanted to share that because I was in Vegas yesterday and I saw that article.
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I said, probably a good idea for us to bring it up.
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Adam, you look like you want to say something about Vegas.
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I was going to say, what are they going to do to fix it?
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I mean, every company is going to have to, or every attraction or every city is at that
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So, you know, what's the value prop that Vegas brings to the table?
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You know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
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Yeah, what also happens on OnlyFans can stay on OnlyFans or on Tinder or on Grindr.
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I mean, less people are going out there partying as much these days.
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PBD is actually single-handedly keeping Vegas afloat with his conferences.
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So what's the new value prop Vegas is bringing to the table?
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You know, Oakland A's are about to go to Vegas.
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Yes, the Oakland A's will play in Sacramento until the stadium is built in Vegas.
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Do you think Vegas can reinvent themselves and make a comeback, Pat?
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Do you think bookstores can reinvent themselves and make a comeback?
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Well, they can if they completely change their business model.
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You know, bookstores used to be a place to go buy books, just like Starbucks was a place
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At this point, social gatherings and getting people together still is important, right?
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I go to the mall to get chicks with Umberto all the time, bro.
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So people are still going to want to hang out, but what they're going to do when they're
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But bookstores, if you, you know, have reasons to come together, get together, group settings,
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what have you, nobody goes to a bookstore to buy a book.
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That's what you buy Amazon or Audible or anything like that.
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That was the theory of, you know, the theory that they had on the Oakland Raiders going to
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Las Vegas was that, you know, Adam and I, let's say we live in Cleveland and, you
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We love the Cleveland Browns and it's December 10th.
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Not much going on in Cleveland, but Cleveland will be at the Raiders in Las Vegas.
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We say, Hey man, let's grab a Southwest flights and let's go out to Las Vegas and see the Browns
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And they pull a lot of away team fans into Vegas for those games.
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Those people do not spend as much as they thought they would be spending Pat in Vegas.
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They're not dropping another thousand, $2,000 on partying and gaming.
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So the whole thesis about the Raiders being a magnet for all the away team fans.
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I said, no, who goes to road game, baseball games?
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Except if it's the big names, Cardinals, Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers.
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If you think bookstores are not making a comeback, Vegas is not going to make the same comeback because technology put them out.
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You know how they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?
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Nowadays is what happens on OnlyFans, what happens on Tinder, what happens on, you know, online casinos.
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I have a lot of great memories in Vegas as a young man coming up, and I was in Vegas quite often.
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I would drive up Zizik's, if anybody knows that exit.
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Can I give a contradictory statement right now?
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I think, actually, my buddy Michael Sartain talks about this in Vegas.
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And then they reach the breaking point where it's like, all right, we have too many clubs.
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And Marquee and all this stuff that Jason Strauss and these guys do will still exist.
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It's like if you have 10 great bars in your city and that's the max.
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And tell me, everybody in the group text last night was texting back except for one guy.
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And the one guy who didn't respond back was this guy.
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He says he doesn't have hate towards the Yankees.
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Having said that, the pitcher of the Yankees yesterday pitched a 12 strike.
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For some of you guys that are Dodger fans, you're from L.A. and you're on Tom's side,
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we got the Dodger blue future looks bright hat.
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By the way, whether you're a Dodgers fan or not, that is a legit one of the sickest blue
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But if you're a Yankees fan, folks, we also got the Yankees hat.
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We're going to be watching to see which of these two is going to get more luck.
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Now, Tom was upset because Tom said people in L.A. are sleeping, Pat.
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But listen, California is one of the biggest viewers of the podcast.
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So, Rob, we have to find a way to put the links of both hats there.
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Folks, if you're searching it, you could put navy hat.
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And what's the other hat's title if somebody is searching it so they want to find it?
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Maybe you're somebody that's kind of like, you know, you're neither the Yankees or the Dodgers.
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I don't know if we guys saw it or not that we're chasing.
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They're holding the Pirates players back from destroying this ump.
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Because of a couple bad pitches that that Cubs obviously won.
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Well, we're going to see what's going to happen.
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