This is the online home of David G. Schwartz, who Themed hotels alive and well–in SoCal
For a few years now, everyone who is anyone in casino design has known that theming has gone the way of the 99-cent shrimp cocktail. But has it actually gone the way of the $29 room rate, surprising everyone with a boomerang comeback? This LA Times story made me wonder:
Only two months after announcing plans to add a water attraction at the theme park in Carlsbad, Calif., Legoland has won approval from the city of Carlsbad to build a Lego-themed hotel on the property.The Carlsbad City Council approved a plan last week to build a 254-room hotel outside the entrance to the park. The plan must also win approval from the California Coastal Commission, which regulates construction along the state's coast.A final price tag and a construction timeline are pending approval by the commission, said Julie Estrada, a spokeswoman for Legoland.But she said the hotel would adopt the Lego theme throughout the building, including Lego-designed carpeting and wallpaper.”You'll feel like you are staying in Legoland,” she said of the hotel.
Now if they could actually build the hotel out of Legos, that would be something to see. Lego-designed carpeting sounds pretty compelling, though.
Themed hotels are still an attraction because they are something different. Of course, turning your hotel into a Lego castle or spaceship isn’t the only way to give visitors variety–in fact it’s a bit of a lazy way to do it. Instead of building something new that’s carefully crafted to offer a unique experience, it’s just turning out a soundbite concept that’s easy to explain. Take the corner of Sands and the Boulevard. On one side you’ve got the Venetian and Palazzo, which you can explain in a sentence: a resort that tries to look like Venice. Across the street you have Wynn, which takes a little more effort. I’d use the words plush, luxe, detailed, and enveloping if I were to try to describe it in a single sentence, but even that doesn’t do it justice.
So themes are bad, right? Not so fast. A lot of people like soundbites. This is particularly true in Las Vegas, where people are by definition going to have fun, not be uplifted by the subtle and sublime charms of an exquisitely-crafted resort. There will always be a market for a fun, affordable alternative, and a theme, unless it’s completely obtrusive, is an easy way of giving a property an identity.
Posted in business of gamblingon 11/03/2009 11:58 am by Dave
11/03/2009 at 12:49 pm
If I remember correctly, LegoLand SoCal actually has (or at one time featured) a model Las Vegas Strip built out of Legos. So right there you have 15 of the world’s 20 largest hotels, all made out of that multi-purpose primary-colored plastic building material!
Wait, I found it (and it only features 10 hotels):
“Miniland Las Vegas is designed to simulate the feeling of walking down Las Vegas Blvd. A blacktop street runs down the middle of the miniature city, starting below ground level. Guests walk down the path with models of the famous buildings rising above them on either side to create the feeling of walking next to the actual massive entertainment complexes.”
That is so postmodern it hurts! A simulation of a simulation! I wonder if Bruce Begout has written about LegoLand yet. Of course, all he would have to do is to glance at the website (http://www.legoland.com/business/press/minilandlasvegas.htm) before delivering his scathing review of this impostor of impostors, the epitome of American self-indulgent dissimulation, more offensive than Vegas, but not in the middle of a godforsaken desert.
11/03/2009 at 9:28 pm
When I lived in Las Vegas I sold printing for American Printing and one of my accounts was the Bourbon Street Hotel and Casino. You would assume this hotel would have some sort of New Orleans flavor because of the name. Unfortunately it did not and the place was usually empty when I stopped by every month or so. The Bourbon Street Hotel and Casino was pretty much a dump. Harrah’s Entertainment bought it and imploded back in 2006.