Las Vegas Review Journal – Stop the presses. Steve Wynn declared Las Vegas is on the road to recovery Thursday. At the outset of a first-quarter conference call with analysts, the Wynn Resorts Ltd. chairman and CEO said he was “feeling good about Las Vegas, better than I had in the past.”
Wynn based his opinion on the company’s results from Wynn Las Vegas and Encore during the three-month period that ended March 31.
The resorts’ overall revenue total — $380.9 million — was a 1.5 percent decline from a year ago and accounted for just 25 percent of the company’s overall first quarter revenue of $1.51 billion.
It was the nontraditional reporting numbers that Wall Street uses to gauge profitability that caused Wynn to proclaim the Strip’s recovery.
The average daily room rate at the two resorts increased 6.2 percent to $275 per night. Revenue per available room, often referred to as RevPar, grew 12.6 percent to $214.
“That makes us the most profitable hotel in Las Vegas,” Wynn said. “Las Vegas is growing into the additional capacity that it added in the past. CityCenter and Encore opened at the worst possible time in the national economy.”
While other gaming industry CEOs have said the Strip was on the road to recovery, Wynn was reluctant to do so. Until Thursday.
“I see Las Vegas getting a footing that it hasn’t in the past,” Wynn said. Still, Wynn Resorts is a company that relies on Macau.
