This doesn’t appear to be a great time to open more rooms at the inn, but the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas has forged ahead with the opening of its new tower.

The 490-room Paradise Tower pushes the off-Strip hotel’s inventory to 1,300 rooms, but the Hard Rock isn’t worried about filling them, according to this report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Casino marketing consultant Randy Fine thinks the Hard Rock is making a mistake, according to this Associated Press story. "They want to turn a boutique property into a mega-resort," Fine said. "This is probably not the time to be doing that."

In the same AP report, analyst Bill Lerner said, "One more room in Las Vegas right now is too much."

Of course, the Paradise Tower is nothing compared with the massive influx of room supply coming to Las Vegas. The multi-hotel CityCenter resort and its 5,000-plus hotel rooms is scheduled to open on the Strip in late 2009.

If the economy doesn’t turn around by then, it could mean more trouble for CityCenter owners Dubai World and MGM Mirage, which saw the project almost succumb to bankruptcy earlier this year.

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