Caesars Entertainment is raising resort fees for customers staying at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip, the adjoining Nobu Hotel and the company’s off-Strip Rio Hotel and Casino.
Taking effect this week, the increases from $39 per night to $45 at the Palace and from $32 to $35 at the Rio come amid a rising national tide of consumer complaints about the fees and a new bipartisan bill in Congress that would require their disclosure up front, as part of the rates advertised on hotel booking sites.
The fees, which go by a variety of names—“venue fee, destination fee, facilities fee, amenities fee, urban resort fee”—will total more than $3 billion nationally this year alone, according to congressional research.
In Las Vegas, where the fees have become both a profit center and a growing source of tourist complaints, casinos say they require them to recoup costs for in-room wifi, boarding-pass printing, free local calling, fitness center access and other services.
Caesars CEO Tony Rodio acknowledged the controversy surrounding the fees during the company’s second-quarter earnings call in August.
“I don’t think we’re there yet, but I want us to be very judicious and cautious about taking those rates any further,” Rodio said. “It’s certainly a revenue stream that’s hard to walk away from, and it’s been accepted at this point, but we’re getting pretty high.”
That didn’t stop Caesars from defending the latest round of increases, the first in more than a year, saying they’re necessary to “bring resort fees in line with relevant competitors.”
A nightly fee of $45 is the norm at other high-end resorts on the Strip: Las Vegas Sands’ Venetian and Palazzo, Wynn Resorts’ Wynn and Encore and MGM Resorts International’s Bellagio and Aria included.
The Sands and Wynn properties don’t charge for parking, however, while Caesars and MGM do.
“Management has noted there is a breaking point to these fees, but it doesn’t appear they think we’ve hit it yet,” SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Barry Jonas said of the increases.
The fees are not charged to Caesars Rewards Diamond and Seven Star guests.
The federal bill—the “Hotel Advertising Transparency Act of 2019 (HR4489) “would ensure that consumers are shown the full pre-tax price of a hotel room while searching and comparing lodging options for their next trip,” according to a statement from its sponsors.
The bill “would prohibit hotels and other places of short-term lodging from advertising a rate for a room that does not include all required fees other than taxes and fees imposed by a government. The FTC, along with Attorneys General from across the country, would have the ability to enforce this provision through the Federal Trade Commission Act.”
While some Las Vegas casino hotels have reduced or done away with resort fees, the funds are an important part of the bottom line for the big Las Vegas Strip resorts.
Not surprisingly Nevada Democrat Congresswoman Dina Titus is planning to oppose the bipartisan bill, downplaying its chances of passage. Introduced by Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-Nebraska), Titus says there is so much going on in Congress, “I’m not sure it’s going to move.”
