Saturday, February 05, 2011

Las Vegas Sands cuts Comps

In a conference call on Thursday, Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson stated that the company has cut comps at Venetian and Palazzo, instead charging full price for hotel rooms:

"We've essentially cut all of our comps except our most highly-rated players. No more comped rooms. No food and beverage. No showroom credits. We're selling rooms. We see it's resulting in a substantial increase in cash income."

Las Vegas Sands focuses heavily on convention bookings. Bookings have evidently been strong lately, so they apparently don't feel the need to lure in average customers with free rooms.

It's an interesting strategy. While I'm not sure I would have made such a bold statement to the public about cutting comps, if they can fill their rooms and still charge full price, why wouldn't they?

If MGM or Caesars had done this I think it probably would have been a bad move, but LVS only has 2 hotels in Las Vegas and they're making more money overseas anyway, so I think they can get away with it.