Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tility—the industry is taking no chances. After watching the cloud of fear lift around air-
port security and seeing their industry treated as an economic engine, Freeman, of the
travel association, said his group wants this helpful attitude to continue. Already his staff
has traveled to Boston to huddle with Romney's campaign staff. “We have to be prepared
if the Republicans win.” Obama won.
• • •
Las Vegas is a good vantage point for surveying the state of play of tourism in the United
States after the rest of the world pulled ahead during that “lost decade” and with hopes
pinned on a stronger role for the federal government.
Las Vegas is at the top of nearly every survey of the American tourism industry. Some-
times Las Vegas ranks first as the most-visited; other times that honor goes to New York
City or Orlando, Florida. Unlike the other two cities, Las Vegas is pure tourism. It has no
other reason for existing than offering “adult fun” for the masses.
The gangsters Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel built up the town in the middle of a for-
lorn desert in Nevada, with casinos, resorts and mobsters. Lansky underwrote the initial
casino phase with millions of dollars from the illegal drug trade with Mexico. Siegel added
outrageous excess to the city by building the Flamingo, the first in what would become a
long line of resort palaces with casinos, glitter and a whiff of Hollywood posh; all financed
with underworld money and muscle.
Naughty Las Vegas was also sophisticated Las Vegas, with the best shows in the country.
Frank Sinatra, as troubadour to the mob, brought along his friends in the Rat Pack: Dean
Martin, Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Peter Lawford, brother-in-law of President
John F. Kennedy. In its heyday the Beatles played Las Vegas; Elvis Presley was a regular in
his sequined white jumpsuits; Wayne Newton and Engelbert Humperdinck became syn-
onymous with the midnight shows; Céline Dion sings to sold out crowds whenever she
appears and Bette Midler sang through the recent recession at Caesar's Palace. Barely clad
showgirls with feathers and spangles accompany the acts and fill the house.
In the background were the big gamblers at the roulette wheel, blackjack tables, poker
tables and slot machines, betting money on the dice and cards and filling the coffers of the
resorts. Every other state outlawed gambling; Nevada embraced it and Las Vegas was the
gambling capital of the country.
Those days are gone. Native Americans have revived their fortunes by opening
gambling parlors on their reservations. States with deficits are competing for tourists to
come play the slots.
Above all, what altered gambling in Las Vegas was the opening up of China. For nearly
five hundred years the Chinese territory of Macao, a former Portuguese colony, had been
the Monte Carlo of Asia. Chinese and European gamblers lost fortunes at baccarat and
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