Canadian female magician to appear in Vegas

VANCOUVER (The Canadian Press, 2004) - A world-champion Vancouver magician is performing in Las Vegas over the next few weeks.

Juliana Chen is featured in the World's Greatest Magic Show at the Greek Isles Casino until the end of the month, when she departs for an engagement in Germany. Chen is a respected magician known as the first and only woman ever to have won a world championship with a solo act in the 50-year history of the World Congress of Magicians.

More Italy in Vegas

Updates about Palazzo, the $1.6 Billion new casino resort on the Strip (Sands Avenue), verbatim from http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article.cfm?contentID=144165

The new megaresort adjacent to The Venetian, which the company already owns and operates, is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2007 and will feature more than 3,000 hotel suites, a 105,000-square foot-casino and a 375,000-square-foot mall.

"(The Palazzo) represents a shift to a different area of the Strip where you have a number of redevelopment possibilities," said Joe Greff, gaming analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, an independent Wall Street investment research firm, referring to the Stardust, the Riviera, the Sahara, New Frontier and Wet 'n Wild.

The Palazzo will also be directly across Sands Avenue from Wynn Las Vegas, which is scheduled to open April 28.

Greff said the Palazzo and the other projects at the north end of the Strip will all capitalize on the booming convention business that is driving the Las Vegas economy and developments in the gaming industry.

The proceeds of the credit package, which will include a revolving line of credit and term loan facilities, will be used to fund design, development, construction and pre-opening costs for The Venetian's Palazzo casino resort; to refinance Venetian's existing debt; and to pay related fees and expenses.

The Palazzo casino resort will be owned by a Venetian subsidiary for purposes of its debt instruments, which should close in August.

The Palazzo mall is expected to be owned and financed by a subsidiary of The Venetian, and General Growth Properties has agreed to purchase the mall when it opens.

In addition to the new credit package, the company plans to finance the $1.6 billion project with $135 million in equipment financing, a $250 million construction loan for the Palazzo mall, the net proceeds from the recently completed $766 million sale of the 5-year-old Grand Canal Shoppes and operating cash flow.

In connection with the financing, Las Vegas Sands plans to acquire all of the capital stock of Interface Group Holding from Sheldon Adelson, the principal stockholder of Las Vegas Sands.

Interface Group Holding indirectly owns the Sands Expo and Convention Center and holds all of the preferred interest in The Venetian.

Record for local tourism in May

Yesssssssss, we made it. Verbatim from http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article.cfm?contentID=144166

"A surge in convention attendance powered another record for local tourism in May, when Las Vegas welcomed more than 3.2 million visitors for the third consecutive month.

The city's 3.26 million May guests represented a 6.9 percent gain from the same month of 2003, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said Monday. The performance was the city's best May ever and was the 11th consecutive period in which Las Vegas has enjoyed year-over-year monthly increases in visitor volume, said John Piet, senior research analyst for the convention authority.

Fueled by approximately 24,000 attendees at the National Hardware Show's first appearance in Southern Nevada, as well as solid gains by recurring shows such as the International Council of Shopping Centers and Networld+Interop's technology showcase, Las Vegas hosted 509,298 conventioneers during the month, up nearly 28 percent from May 2003.

Piet said two local beauty product trade shows also shifted to May from June 2003, transferring their business to the earlier month's tally. Regardless of which show they attended, visiting business travelers left behind more than $608.1 million in nongaming spending, up more than 32 percent from a year ago.

Through May, Las Vegas' 15.76 million visitors was 7.3 percent better than last year's five-month total and remained on pace to easily top the city's best 12-month total of 35.85 million visitors set in 2000.

A rush of May business travelers fueled an 11 percent jump in average daily rates for local hotel and motel rooms, which climbed to $94.88 from $85.47 a year ago. Through May, the local average was up 9.6 percent to $94.38.

In addition to paying more for rooms, visitors also found vacancies were scarce. Occupancy levels within Southern Nevada's nearly 129,800 rooms was 90.9 percent in May, up 5.2 percentage points from last year. Year-to-date, the citywide occupancy rate of 89.8 percent was up 4.5 percentage points from a year ago.

Laughlin's May visitor count fell by 8.9 percent to 333,508, a decrease Piet said is normal for small tourism markets. Year-to-date, the Colorado River resort's 1.8 million reported visitors was up just 0.4 percent compared with the first five months of 2003.

Mesquite's 150,901 May visitors was virtually unchanged from May 2003's reported 150,953 tally. That city's five-month visitor count was up 2.5 percent from a year ago at 739,148."