Here we go again. The Las Vegas casino and casino hotel industry, for the most part, saw a dismal 2009. Numbers were down across the board. Some of them reached record or near record lows. The poor economy in the United States is largely to blame. Individuals and families can not afford the vacations they were once used to. Those who can are doing as much. Sadly, there are way to many people who are doing all they can just to hang on to their job if they still have one. Still, there were several casino companies that made expansions and improvements in 2009. Some like MGM Mirage’s CityCenter were a highlight to the year. Others may have nice long term effects, but they did not manifest themselves in 2009.

An example of 2009 can be seen in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The property made some major improvements. They added close to 900 guest rooms when they opened the Paradise Tower and the HRH tower. They also added new meeting space and enlarged their concert space (an important venue for a casino hotel that carries the reputation of Hard Rock Cafes). The $750 million expansion also called for the casino hotel to increase their employment staff. All of this seems to be good for economy. Short term and long term jobs were created. The economy was stimulated, but the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino found no good deed goes unpunished.

Sadly, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino posted its lowest revenue numbers since 2004. They were able to minutely scale down some debt, but they were working under a $197 million deficit. The addition of the new hotel rooms, while nice for marketing, also caused the room occupancy rate to just over 80 percent and the average room rate to go from $190 a night to $134 a night. Net revenues were down by 1.7 percent. Hopefully, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino picked the perfect time to expand. Hopefully they were able to get everything complete at the end of a bad and therefore the beginning of good economic time in America.

Tags: casino, gambling, online