Is Las Vegas a place of champagne kisses and caviar dreams? Robin Leach, former host of the iconic Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, joins Peter to share why he now calls Las Vegas home and the hidden indicators of Vegas economic recovery.
Peter Greenberg: Robin, is it true that you now live in Las Vegas?
Robin Leach: I live in Las Vegas. It’s the greatest town in the world to live in. I’ve been a resident of Vegas for eleven, going on twelve years. What a great city to live in! It is a city that has absolutely everything.
PG: It amazes me how Las Vegas has always maintained a certain resiliency no matter what is going on with the economy. Last time I was in town, I asked all the hoteliers if their properties were full? Yes they were, but of course they were not getting the yield they wanted because the rates were down. Are profits coming back?
RL: The economic bounce back is slow. I look at room rates and I look at the gaming numbers, and I look at visitation numbers. We’re definitely up over last year. But it’s a thin increase because there’s no big spend that comes from it, and that’s going to be the key to the recovery.
In the good old days, we had two people in a room. Then it went up to six people in a room. And now it dropped from six people to four people in a room. We’re now heading in the right direction.
RL: The biggest measure that hotels have are the laundry bills. They can tell from the amount of laundry they do on the weekend how many people were in each individual room. Laundry bills––that’s the measure of our economy. If the laundry bill is going down that means less and less people are packing into rooms and more rooms are being used.
PG: Speaking of room charges, what was the one item you used to steal from a hotel?
RL: I only ever used to take a great bar of soap if I was in a Rosewood Hotel. Rosewood soaps were the best. I don’t bother with the Motel 6 soaps––too small.
PG: So you never tried to cram a bathrobe in your suitcase?
RL: No. I’ve actually been really honest, Peter. With some of my good friends in the hotel business, I sometimes say, “you know that’s a great bathrobe, I was really tempted to lift it.” My friends would tell me that I can buy it for a hundred dollars, but Christmas would come and they’d send me a bathrobe with my name at it.
PG: So that was your scam; I got it. You’re busted. How many bathrobes do you have in your closet now?
RL: Twenty-three now.
PG: That’s the most monogrammed bathrobes in one closet. I love it. In all seriousness, what’s changed in Las Vegas that you don’t like?
RL: We already touched on the four and six people in the room. People are bringing in ice chests on wheels containing their food and beer for the entire weekend. It really upsets me that people are eating cold cuts with six packs when they could be eating some of the world’s best food in our restaurants. So that’s the thing that annoys me more than anything else at the moment.
PG: In room sandwiches are not part of caviar wishes or champagne dreams.
By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio.
Related links on PeterGreenberg.com:
