I guess it goes without saying that Las Vegas cannot compete with the history and the spirit of Boston, Massachusetts, and of course Boston doesn’t have nearly the excitement of Las Vegas and the bright lights and party atmosphere. Last week I was in Las Vegas at a convention where I was slated as a speaker, and the week after Thanksgiving I will be at a conference where I am also slated as a speaker in Boston. Last week, the travel and hotel bill was negligible, whereas the bill in two weeks will definitely leave a mark on the bank account. I’m wondering the difference.
There is the idea that Boston is a 1700 mile flight which is twice that of Vegas from my home, but as far as the accommodations, are sheets in Boston much more to launder than those in Vegas? I’m not really sure they are, but the room I am staying at in Boston is twice the rate I received in Vegas. I may be comparing apples to oranges, but it seems to me that a room is a room is a room. I’m looking forward to seeing if they actually wash their sheets in bottled water and leave 2 pounds of chocolate on the pillow in Boston or if I would just perhaps hand the Concierge five $100 bills like they do at the blackjack tables in Vegas, my room rate might just drop. The math of conferences and conventions baffles me.
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November 16th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Simple economics: scarcity. Las Vegas is a town built specifically for travelers. Boston’s visitor industry is built upon tourism and business travel, but not with nearly the same eye toward scalability. Vegas has to absorb multiple massive conventions/tradeshows and other spikes in traffic caused by events; Boston may have two larger events happening at any given time, but instances of this are few/far between. And, Boston’s ability to develop more space for travelers is limited by an ocean to the East and urban sprawl to its north, west and south. Vegas has an entire desert available to it for additional growth.
All of which is a long way of saying there isn’t the glut of available hotel rooms in Boston one finds in Vegas which is a convention destination location, with an economy built expressly for that purpose.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Las Vegas is the world’s best place for vacations. Last year also I had planned my vacations through Travelocity and got wonderful services for hotel reservation and air ticket.