Harrah's has added the 'slot finder' to their Web site, basically the ability to see if your favorite slot machine is in one of their casinos. Still, no cool features like a map to the machines, etc...
You can find the slot finder here:
http://www.harrahs.com/SlotFinder.do?action=stepOne&searchType=Location
This leads to the larger point - Las Vegas casino Web sites generally suck. They are all basically brochures on the Web, in various stages of design prowess. Now, the biggies do have access to their slot club balances online and that sort of thing but there are still lots of features they could add, not to mention much more comprehensive looks at the properties themselves.
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Agreed. As far as I know, Mirage is my favorite site with lots of information, menus, and a good number of images, but that's relative to other casino websites which really lack. MGM's new one isn't bad, but I rarely browse the internet without music playing so it really annoys me to have to turn a website's audio off (if they even have that option; are you listening Wynn [the WORST offender], Mandalay, THEhotel, etc?)
I believe a lot of the sites intentionally lack information/images to keep for spoiling the destination. I suppose that's admirable, but on a pure marketing sense, I think customers would be more willing to spend when they can see floorplans and video tours of suites or pictures of the restaurants and public spaces.
Can you imagine how many less "How is XXX's View/Hot Tub/Foyer/Bar/ect..." Threads there would be on the web?
I enjoyed The Signature suite video tours, really made me want to check those rooms out. Every hotel in the world should have these. They really arent that costly or painful to do, one would think.
A bit unrelated...
When I read about Harrah's land acquisitions along The Strip, Koval and Harmon; and when looking at google earth or vegastodayandtommorrow.com, I can't help but thinking what how great Steve Wynn is at acquiring the right parcel of land at the right time. Yes, most of us agree that he designs and operates the finest casinos in the world; but, he truly one of the great real estate investors. He has never failed to realize amazing gains in his real estate acquistions.
A distant shout-out has to go to Robert Earl. The $600 million he paid for the painfully disgusting and disfunctional Aladdin is one hell-of-a real estate play. If he could ever come to grips that nobody likes Planet Hollywood (or ever did - including Bruno, The Gov, and Rocky), he would realize that he should just flip it and make $250-400 million (or a bunch more if the Trop is a benchmark) by selling it to MGM or HET, someone that could somehow refurb it and integrate it into a meaningful portfolio. We could only be so lucky if one of these parties (most likely MGM) would rid the great Vegas landscape of this atrocity (create CC West).
Getting back to HET (and my original thought), this board really slams MGM and the CC development. But what can HET make of all of their second and third rate properties and back-alley development land? Good luck. Do they really have the sack to knock down everything between Paris and Harrah's? That is what it will take. Monte Carlo and Excalibur will be history before HET takes decisive action.
Getting back to Wynn, if he really wants to build something spectacular (and maximize return to his shareholders), be practical about the golf course development. Yes a big 60 acre lake that separates the Wynn and Encore from the 3 boutique hotels will be pretty (as long as it is not a Tidy Bowl lake). Why not keep that lake, but stick a 70 story Super-Luxe hotel right in the middle? Use the money from Macau and build the unquestioned greatest hotel in the world. Is Wynn or Encore the best ever? Consensus around here would say...
check out the new MGM Grand website...
this is the new standard
I probably shoudn't complain, because a part of my business here is basically filling in the gaps that these casino folks are leaving on their Web sites... But...
Where are the photos of everything (rooms! bathrooms! restaurants! casino! showroom!), listing of electrical outlets in the rooms, detailed and live map of casino and games (this should be very possible), notifications (emails and text messages) when room rates reach a certain level, etc ...
This is only what came off the top of my head. If I really thought about it I could come up with quite a few.
Even though a well executed Web site/application should focus on usability and simplicity, I can think of integrating these features and still meeting that goal.
Anyway...
I should mention that I do think the MGM Grand site is better than most casino sites... An improvement.
I still can't believe that a lot of casino Web sites don't have restaurant menus!!!
What makes you think Monte Carlo will be gone anytime soon? That property is 10 years old max. It doesn't seem so bad - a decent mid-priced alternative.
I don't think that Monte Carlo is going anywhere... That place has really insane ROI.
yes, you are probably right about the Monte Carlo for 5 years, but when CC settles in, the land just seems to valuable not to develop it with 7+ billion sitting next to and behind it. It seems the EBITDA opportunity cost would current return.
Has anyone seen the Aladdin in the past few days? The intro to the Team USA vs. Puero Rico BBall game last night had a shot of the strip from the NYNY Brooklyn Bridge. It appeared (and I reviewed 2x on DVR) that the exterior facade of the top 2/3 of the Aladdin had been removed. Very interested to get any on the ground intel on this.