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The Street
The Street
Rob Lenihan

Rich People Aren't Visiting Las Vegas For Gambling - It's About This New Habit

What would the Rat Pack say about this?

Las Vegas is a place where people like to let loose and live large.

Nobody did that better than Frank Sinatra and his equally hard-drinking buddies like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop who were a part of Sin City royalty back in the 1960s.

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After all it was Dino who said "you’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on."

And Ol' Blue Eyes himself claimed that he felt sorry for people who didn't drink.

"When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel," he said.

So just imagine how this bunch would react to the news that people are visiting Las Vegas for their health.

Yes, the town known for eating, gambling and enthusiastically skipping sleeping is also a destination for people interested in getting fit. 

Las Vegas welcomed 38.8 million visitors in 2022, 20.5% more than 2021 when many international pandemic restrictions were still in place, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA).

'Doing Burpees in Vegas'

With all those people coming to town, you have to figure at least some of them are interested in burning calories instead of burning the midnight oil.

MGM Reports International (MGM), for example, offers visitors Stay Well Rooms, which "combine the latest wellness technologies from Delos, the Cleveland Clinic and Dr. Deepak Chopra, all to help make your stay everything you want it to be."

The Canyon Ranch, which bills itself as "Your Wellness Oasis", invites visitors to "escape the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip and enter a sanctuary of wellness, where spa, fitness, and food experiences replenish you on your path to lifelong well-being." 

A reporter from The Daily Mail described how she went to the Cosmopolitan Hotel for "a high-intensity workout involving 60 zingy minutes of grunting, jumping and sweating" as part of healthy Vegas trek.

“I bet you didn’t think you’d be doing burpees in Vegas!” her fitness instructor said.

In November, Travel + Leisure compiled a list of the 10 best spas in Las Vegas, noting that with all the resorts on the Strip "it's no surprise that these hotels look to their spas to provide some serious wow factor."

Included on the list was The Spa at Aria, which has a selection of whirlpools, steam baths, and saunas in both locker rooms, along with several co-ed spaces. 

Gambling on Healthy Tourism

"There is a lounge filled with heated Japanese stone ganbanyoku beds, a shio salt room, and a therapy pool perched on a balcony above the main pool deck," Travel + Leisure said.

The global wellness tourism industry is predicted to be worth around a very healthy $1.02 trillion in 2030, according to Statista, up from the $476.1 billion market size in 2022.

Nearly 10 years ago, the visitors authority and other groups got together with medical tourism advocacy group Las Vegas HEALS (Health, Education, Advocacy, and Leadership of Southern Nevada), the University of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance partnered on a regional strategic plan for medical and wellness tourism.

“The fact that Vegas is such an amazing tourism destination -- I think it only has the potential to grow,” Jonathan Edelheit, the chairman and cofounder of the Medical Tourism Association, told KNPR

“If you have a destination where you have great healthcare, but you don’t have any tourism … that’s tough," he said. "But I feel like Vegas has a continual customer base that will only grow over time.”

So you really can have some good, clean fun in Las Vegas. But no matter how you enjoy yourself, make sure you do it with style.

As Frank Sinatra would say, "“Cock your hat—angles are attitudes.”

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