When MGM, Wynn, Caesars announced a few years back that they wanted to charge for parking, all of us locals who lived in Vegas thought it was the wrong path to take. It had a few effects on the local population:
- First effect did not benefit the casinos. Vegas locals decided it wasn’t worth going to visit the Strip casinos and instead just patronized the local casinos such as The M Resort, Stations Casinos, South Point and The Venetian (the one exception on the Strip that maintained free parking).
- The second effect and unintended consequence of this was that all the valet parking attendents got less work and essentially very little tip because now visitors to the Strip casinos have to pay for Valet parking.
- The third effect that can be seen as a plus for the Strip casinos is that a lot of frequent patrons decided to sign up for sponsored credit card programs that was linked to a membership tier that provided free parking. Whether this one plus outweighs the loss of local visitors to the Strip casinos? Only the casinos know.
It took a pandemic to change MGM’s mind on the free parking. But I’m glad they did. Vegas will need to re-invent itself to survive. Free parking, is a good start.