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Introduction
Las Vegas casino resort hotels compete in an expanding and evolving environment. The projected visitor volume for 1998 was in excess of 30,00,000 people, of which 68 percent were projected to be return visitors. The total number of guest rooms for casino-resort hotels located in Las Vegas is currently 105,000 and will reach nearly 120,000 rooms by 1999 (LVCVA, 1998). With the 1998/1999 expansion that included the opening of Bellagio, the Venetian, Paris, and Mandalay Bay, as well as expansions planned by existing properties, more than 14,000 rooms were added to the market - most of them on the famous Las Vegas Strip.
While Las Vegas casino-resorts enjoy a current occupancy rate of 90.3% (down from 93.4% in 1997) many hotel executives are concerned about maintaining high occupancy rates with the current expansion rate. Not only is competition fierce in the number of choices a guest has in terms of room availability, but high occupancy rates are necessary for other components of the casino-resort to be profitable. Today's mega-resorts are a combination of rooms, restaurants, showrooms, gaming entertainment, retail stores, and arcade or other themed virtual entertainment experiences. Occupancy rates of over 90% are necessary to keep the entire operation profitable, or a domino effect occurs reducing or eliminating profits in the ancillary areas (Personal interview, J. D. Clayton, Assistant Vice President of Casino Operations for MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV, December, 1997).
It is in the context of this explosive growth, coupled with managements' concerns about how to entice customers to return to their property with so many other options available, that this study was conceived.
To determine what factors might influence a customer's decision to return, the researchers investigated several sources. Contemporary customer retention and loyalty literature was reviewed and industry executives in Las Vegas Strip properties were interviewed. The literature described traditional guest satisfaction and service quality issues as major components of retention. The executives cast doubt on the applicability of such theories for the Las Vegas market. As a result of the information provided, this study was conducted to examine factors that influence a guest's intent to return to a particular Las Vegas casino-resort property in today's expanding and evolving environment.
Review of Literature
Contemporary Literature on Customer...