Vegas Events

The 490-room Paradise Tower opens at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas this Friday. The tower, whose leather, wood and silver-studded velvet decor create an "anything-can-happen" feeling, also features a 3,500-square-foot penthouse and 10 pool suites. Part of the Hard Rock's overall expansion, Paradise will be followed by another tower with casino space and 374 rooms set to open in December.

Hard Rock's expansion is just one element of Las Vegas' still-growing hotel inventory. Set to open in late 2009, CityCenter, which finally secured funding back in May, will feature a 4,004-room gaming resort and the city's first Mandarin Oriental and Vdara Hotel, which combined will offer 2,400 residences. In 2010, the 400-room Las Vegas boutique hotel The Harmon is scheduled to open its doors at CityCenter as well.

Not everyone is welcoming these additions with open arms.

"Our view is one more room in Las Vegas right now is too much," Bill Lerner, the founder of research and advisory firm Union Gaming Group, told HOTELS magazine. "I understand someone carving out a niche but it's seemingly impossible to overcome the downward pressure simply from just more supply."

Hard Rock CEO and President Randy Kwasniewski disagrees. He told the magazine that both Hard Rock's expansion and the CityCenter project will help the market grow. It will attract new guests and cater to current guests who stay elsewhere because they want quieter sleeping rooms.

"I lived here for five months, and it can be a little intimidating at 4 o'clock in the morning when it sounds like the middle of the afternoon in your hallway," Kwasniewski said. "It simply goes back to a manner of being creative, and providing a product to the consumer that they've never seen before and never experienced before."

The Las Vegas market isn't all expansion, however. A number of projects have been canceled or put on hold due to the current economic conditions. The construction of the 660-room Octavius tower at Caesar's Palace, for example, has been halted by Harrah's Entertainment until further notice.