LVCVA to Unveil “Fabulous” Image Campaign, Casinos Roll Out New Deals and Perks

By Scott Roeben, on September 03 2025
6 min read 26 comments
Las Vegas

Visitation has dipped in Las Vegas (down about 7% from 2024 to-date) and people are talking about it. A lot.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) has seen a flood of negative press, and hasn’t done much about it to-date. That’s about to change, though.

We hear the LVCVA launches a new image campaign dubbed “Fabulous” on Thursday, Sep. 4, 2025, intended to shift the narrative. There are three main narratives being addressed: 1) “Vegas is dead.” 2) “Vegas is no longer a good value.” 3) “The Vegas magic is gone.”

And it’s about damned time the LVCVA got into the game.

Good luck finding new jobs, LVCVA graphic designers. We did these treatments in 30 seconds with A.I.

For the last few months, news outlets around the world have jumped on the “Vegas is dead” bandwagon, talking about a slowdown in Las Vegas visitation like it’s the end of the world.

The truth is, visitation is down a smidge, from last year, but last year was a really good year. Las Vegas has had an incredible 53 month run of $1 billion-plus gambling revenue. It couldn’t last forever.

The lull in visitation has sparked a lot of conversation and ill-informed conclusion-jumping, often by experienced and talented journalists who should really know better.

The reason for the drop in Las Vegas tourism in 2025 is the result of restrictive policies like tariffs, increased visa costs, heightened immigration enforcement and negative public reaction to the Trump administration’s “America First” agenda, which has made potential visitors feel unwelcome.

Or, as our fellow kids refer to it, the “Trump slump.”

There are some big picture challenges faced by Las Vegas, but those didn’t cause the current downturn.

Reporting about the situation has opened a can of worms, though, and many visitors (and former visitors) and pundits and journalists have taken the opportunity to decry how expensive Las Vegas is.

The LVCVA’s campaign will highlight all the things that make Las Vegas unique, emphasizing “value” doesn’t mean “cheap.”

That ship has sailed. But what’s lost in the recent flood of “gouging” talk is the fact Las Vegas still has a metric ass-ton of great values, many are just defining value wrong.

The fact is, people have been complaining about prices in Las Vegas for as long as we’ve been covering the town.

Back in 2018, we wrote about how resort fees and paid parking were ruining everything and the LVCVA needed to deal with the changing perception of Las Vegas as a value destination. Everyone. Collectively. As a town. You know, cat wrangling. But a lot of the cats hate each other because they’re competitors and some of the cats are in public relations, so they’re a little slower than other cats, but don’t make  it awkward.

In that 2018 story, we created a mock ad with the theme “Make Las Vegas a value again.”

Casinos aren’t there yet, but give it a minute.

This is why we can say with confidence that while nuisance fees and prices and bad gambling rules are very real and annoying, people didn’t wake up on Jan. 1, 2025 outraged and determined to boycott Las Vegas until their voices were heard.

The casinos are listening. It just took a minute.

The upshot of all this is Las Vegas is not doomed, but the pain is being felt and the LVCVA is rallying the troops.

The organization has been making the rounds get casinos onboard with the idea the image of Las Vegas has been tarnished, and attention needs to be paid to the issue collectively.

One-off fees or charges aren’t what’s wrong. It’s how such kicks to the nads make people feel.

On the heels of the “Fabulous” campaign, discussions are being had around town about how to help improve the Las Vegas experience, and perks are already showing up.

On Twitter, we’ve been sharing some “surprise and delight” initiatives various casinos have rolled out, or plan to.

For example, Bellagio now serves glasses of Champagne to guests checking in the swanky Strip hotel on the weekends.

MGM Resorts quietly reduced the price of its in-room bottled water by 40%, a substantial financial hit (about $3 million a year), but all in service of affirming that the company is listening and acting upon the concerns of travelers.

Also at Bellagio, guests are being treated to complimentary frozen treats poolside.

We shared that kids 10 and younger will now eat free at any MGM Resorts buffet. Wicked Spoon at Cosmo is also reportedly lowering its prices.

Casinos haven’t announced or confirmed these enhancements, probably because they understand freebies like this won’t cause a 180-degree shift in public sentiment, but it absolutely shows casinos are taking current trends and grievances seriously.

The LVCVA has provided casino leadership with extensive market research done by a third party that does a deep dive into public opinion and attitudes. In the past, the LVCVA has used Las Vegas Field and Focus, LLC, GLS Research and Precision Opinion for its surveys and market analysis.

The LVCVA has put together a list of about a dozen key points its considers critical to address.

The “Fabulous” campaign will take a whack at reminding people the “Las Vegas magic” isn’t dead. Las Vegas is, in fact, a magic factory.

The creative will focus on sports, live entertainment, restaurants and other experiences one can only get in Las Vegas.

Will the campaign and “surprise and delight” efforts stop the bleeding? No, but it could slow it.

There are a lot of aspects of this slowdown that are out of the control of casinos. Casinos don’t have a ton of influence on U.S. trade policy. Gambling is legal across the country now, Las Vegas used to have a monopoly. Digital sports betting makes wagering in one’s hometown a serious temptation. Also, our fellow kids don’t gamble as much as the olds. These are big, serious problems.

Plus, the LVCVA and casinos have to deal with an unprecedented challenge: Social media.

It’s unfair to demonize social media, but somebody has to do it.

Social media platforms love negativity. In an attention economy, social media influencers are compensated by impressions. Algorithms drive traffic to popular posts. Posts that evoke emotions (like anger) are popular. That means the negative aspects of Las Vegas (and everything else) are amplified and often distorted.

That’s what gave the whole “Vegas is dead” thing legs to begin with. Social media. Traditional media just glommed on and didn’t bother to pursue the subject further. Why? Because they thrive on negativity, too.

Oh, and we are one of those outlets. There’s a reason we created that “Make Vegas a value again” ad in 2018. It was viral. It was viral because it talked about the things visitors were mad about. They’re still mad about those things.

And most of the things they’re mad about, like resort fees and parking fees, aren’t going anywhere.

Casinos aren’t charities. They have hard costs (rents and labor keep going up). Prices reflect costs. If a reduction in the price of bottled water costs MGM Resorts $3 million a year, imagine what going back to free parking would cost. Public companies have to satisfy not only customers, but also stockholders. Margins matter. Once a source of revenue is added to the spreadsheet, it’s there to stay. (With a few rare exceptions. Our favorite example is when Caesars Entertainment kicked out all the timeshare salespersons because it was annoying guests. The decision cost the company millions.)

Las Vegas has something for everyone, even those with a limited budget. Las Vegas suffers because it’s compared to its former self. You know, the place where gambling paid for everything and buffets were $1 and the volcano was erupting for the kids and the mob ran things so much better if you discount the whacking or whatever.

The simple fact is you can’t book a room at Wynn Las Vegas and expect to pay Circus Circus prices.

Another fact is that even with resort fees, you can get a hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip for peanuts. A $100 room in Vegas would cost you $800 or more (plus resort fees) in Chicago or Paris or Tokyo. Or Disneyland. And Disneyland doesn’t have a downtown or Ellis Island or Silver Sevens or Oyo or El Cortez.

Fun fact: Being rejected by an A.I. woman activates one’s anterior cingulate cortex, the same part of the brain affected when you’re rejected by a real woman. Hypothetically.

It’s gratifying to see the LVCVA finally doing what we’ve been recommending for years. Partly because we get to gloat about being omniscient, but also because we’re sick of people shit-talking Las Vegas. Only people who love Las Vegas get to do that.

Yes, there’s a lot of room for improvement, and some of the things casinos do are downright embarrassing (“Triple zero roulette, it’s more ways to win!”), but here’s the key to appreciating Las Vegas (and Life): We are what we dwell upon.

We’ve personally fallen victim to dwelling on the negative of late, but it’s time to spend more time enjoying and talking about the positive.

It’s time to see the yardlong slushy as half full, not half empty.

Las Vegas isn’t for everyone, but as the “Fabulous” campaign will illustrate, there’s a lot to love and now is a great time to fall in love with Sin City all over again.

Update (9/4/25): The new LVCVA campaign is a disaster, does none of the things we hoped it would, and everyone needs to be fired.