Viva, Las Vegas

If you've ever answered a telephone, you know how many insurance salesmen there are out there. And these meetings – essentially incentive vacations for the companies'top producers – were the ne plus ultra in terms of locations, accommodations and activities.

And so they flocked to places like Camelback, Jackson Hole, New Orleans, San Francisco and Miami. But they avoided Las Vegas.

Why? Weren't the hotels excellent and the golf abundant, and wasn't there plenty to do? Well, no. After a visit to Hoover Dam and a tour of the desert, there was only one item left on the “plenty to do” list. Everyone ended up back in the casinos. And no insurance company wanted its top producers'families to go home several thousand dollars in the hole after what was supposed to be a positive experience.

There was practically no shopping to speak of, except for the ubiquitous hotel gift shop. And how many silver horseshoe belt buckles did any one family need? The only eating was in grim diners or all-you-can-eat buffets.

But that was then. Today's Las Vegas has changed, into one of the ultimate family vacation spots. The swimming pools are jammed with kids. All the upscale restaurant names are there. And then there is the shopping.

According to a recent article in The New York Times, developers are in the process of adding a million square feet of shopping space along the Strip, and planning 500,000 more.

“Most of the country's shopping center developers are not building any new products,” Anthony Deering, ceo of The Rouse Co., told the Times. “We're down to maybe one a year – which, right now, is a lot.” Yet Rouse is spending $1 billion to renovate the aging Fashion Show Mall on Las Vegas Boulevard. The expansion will more than double the existing square footage, and will feature renovated Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue stores and new Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale's Home stores.

Of course, everyone knows about The Forum Shops at Caesars, which brought Gucci, Ralph Lauren and Mickey Mouse to Las Vegas, along with arguably the most spectacular retail lighting system anywhere in the world. But even that redoubtable enterprise is being expanded by more than 40 percent.

Hotel impresario Steve Wynn is developing Le Reve, which will include the Strip's first auto dealership, selling Maseratis and Ferraris. Mandalay Bay is more than tripling its shopping space, and has signed up Louis Vuitton and Fendi.

And yet, Glenn Schaeffer, president of the Mandalay Resort Group, told the Times that Las Vegas is still “under-retailed.”

Hotels don't use Big Payoffs and lounge acts to lure travelers anymore. A recent full-page ad for Caesars in a tourist brochure doesn't mention gambling. It simply promises: “Shoppus 'til you droppus.”

In some of the new hotels, shoppers don't even have to walk through the casinos on their way to the shops. The shopping promenades at Desert Passage, the Paris, the Bellagio and the Venetian all have their own entrances.

So while the rest of the retail world slumbers in inactivity and doubt, in Vegas it's full speed ahead.

Sure, it's risky. Retailers there are playing the odds, betting the farm and rolling the dice. Isn't that still what Las Vegas is all about?