Las Vegas and the recession
Posted by Kirsten Wright - 04/20/09 at 06:04 pmI just got back from a fabulous trip to Vegas with a couple of girlfriends – we took in a few shows, lay by the pool and had too much good food.
What we didn’t have were the crowds of people that you would usually see.
Obviously we all know the economy has been down, and down for awhile, but I was still shocked when I was in Vegas. I figured Vegas was one of those places the economy wouldn’t effect as much – kind of recession-proof. Now, I am not sure why I assumed that, but I did. So it made me think about the reality of this recession, and I started to do a little research. I have heard the businesses talk about downturn and seen it happen but I guess I hadn’t realized how bad it really was. When I found the numbers for Vegas, I was even more shocked. Newsweek ran an article about the Las Vegas recession and how gambling, which has only been down by 1% once ever is down over 4%. Now 4% may not seem like much, but for a city that has only ever been down once, right after 9-11, it is a pretty impressive number.
So – what does this mean?
It means that if city that has always been considered almost recession proof is suffering, imagine the everyday businesses. It means that your favorite local coffee shop or the restaurant that has the most incredible home-made cheesecake, may not last much longer. And since the current government looks like they won’t be fixing it anytime soon, what can we do to help the situations?
Tell us your stories – what are you doing to help yourself get through this economy? Have you been able to help someone improve their business? Good and bad – we want to know.
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Kirsten Wright is a freelance blogger and graphic designer from Orange County. Her experience spans social media, traditional marketing and many years in writing/editing. She is active in twitter and can be found @kirstenwright. Her personal and business blog, Wright Creativity focuses on the ways that you can use creativity in business and in life.
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April 20th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
[...] I did make quite a few observations about the people, the city and the area. It actually spawned my weekly post for Catherine Favazza [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Kirsten,
It’s interesting that we didn’t even chat about this before you wrote about it, because I was thinking about this over the weekend myself (though for much less fun reasons; no trip to Vegas for me, unfortunately!).
I’m moving later this week and have decided not to get cable/digital TV at my new place. I don’t watch a lot of television anyway, and I figure with all you can watch online and cheaply through NetFlix, iTunes, etc., there’s no reason for me to pay $80+ per month for TV. I certainly don’t watch $80 worth of TV, but more than that, I just want to be careful. I own my own business and business is good, but I am moving to a new, more expensive place, so I want to be guarded in my decisions during the transition to a new place.
I recognize this is a small thing and that many won’t have sympathy for someone choosing to no longer have cable TV, but it’s just a simple example of economy-based adjustments. If I was making the same amount of money in a stronger economy and felt more confident in the markets, etc., I probably wouldn’t have thought through the cable choice the way I did.
Thanks for sharing your great posts on my blog,
Catherine