Travel Roundup: MGM Mirage Sells Treasure Island, West Virginia Buys Ads, Delta's New WiFi and More

Recommended Sources

About Travel Industry

BNET Travel provides daily industry trends and news coverage with insights for managers and executives into all aspects of the travel and tourism industry. In addition to detailed airline and hotel company profiles, we bring you industry analysis on new travel and carrier routes, bankruptcies, mergers, tourism figures, investments and a host of other important business issues.

MGM Mirage to sell Treasure Island Resort & Casino – MGM Mirage agreed Monday to sell its Treasure Island Resort & Casino to businessman Phil Ruffin Sr. for $775 million. The casino company will sell the 2,885-room resort to Ruffin Acquisition LLC for $500 million in cash and $275 million in secured notes. Ruffin, a Wichita real estate mogul, sold the New Frontier Casino & Hotel in Las Vegas last year which was torn down to make way for the Trump International Hotel & Tower. [Source: Kansas City Star]

West Virginia tourism gets $5.35 million for ads – West Virginia’s state Tourism Commission will give $5.35 million in matching funds to venues across the state to pay for tourism ads. The Charles Town Races and Slots will receive $355,000, while the Mountaineer Casino Racetrack and Resort will get $162,481 to lure Ohio and Pennsylvania players. Other grants go to the Morgantown Convention & Visitors Bureau and Winterplace Ski Resort’s 13-hotel coalition, which is trying to attract skiers from Southern states like Florida, Georgia and Alabama. [Source: Charleston Daily Mail]

Delta offers WiFi to passengers for $9.95 and up – Delta Air Lines will feature WiFi, the wireless Internet service, for $9.95 for flights less than three hours and $12.95 for flights running longer. By Tuesday, the carrier is expected to begin its WiFi experiment on four shuttle planes running from New York to Boston and New York to Washington, D.C. The service will be filtered to prevent access to pornographic and other inappropriate sites. The airline will be promoting WiFi for the next two weeks by offering it free of charge. [Source: Washington Post]

Taj Mahal Palace and Tower opens again Dec. 21 — The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, the last stand in the deadly Mumbai terrorist attacks last month, will reopen at 7 p.m. Dec. 21. The chief executive of Indian Hotels Co. Ltd., Raymond Bickson, said it dedicated the reopening to the city of Mumbai and said the hotel would “shine again.” [Source: HospitalityNet]

Tags: Advertisement, West Virginia, MGM Mirage, Wireless LANs, Wi-Fi, Wireless, Barbara E. Hernandez

Bay Area resident and award-winning business journalist Barbara E. Hernandez has covered tourism, real estate and personal finance. Her clients include the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post.

BNET User Analysis

Voice your 2cents

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

1

NeonAndBeach

12/16/08 | Report as spam

RE: Travel Roundup: MGM Mirage Sells Treasure Island, West Virginia Buys Ads, Delta's New WiFi and More

The Treasure Island sale is one of the best things that can happen to Las Vegas and (with any luck), MGMMirage and Harrah's will have to continue to dump properties.

Nothing at all against MGM or Harrah's as corporations. However, Las Vegas tourism is suffering from lack of local completion. When a couple of companies own all the major properties, innovation is stifled and both of these companies have forgot how to offer value and to fight for the consumer's dollar.

Although the former Frontier hotel (owned at the time by now TI owner Phil Ruffin) wasn't exactly the highest class place on The Strip, it got people through the door the old fashioned way: Cheap food specials, reasonable booze prices, gaming that let people win once in a while, and a friendly staff.