I spent a lot of time in taxis during the ASTA World Travel
Congress in Las Vegas, back and forth between the Hilton where I
was staying and hotels where breakfasts and dinners were being
held.
As usual, I gabbed with cab drivers, who usually give me some
behind-the-scenes stuff about a place.
One woman told me a lot of hotels give out free tickets to cab
drivers like herself so that the drivers will promote the shows to
their customers.
She confessed she hadn't been to a show in years and couldn't
remember the last one she saw, but when I asked her about the
Cirque du Soleil show at the Bellagio, she said it was great. I
didn't ask her how she knew that if she hadn't seen it, but I
figured she was picking up the word of mouth.
The driver who took me to the Hilton noted that Kenny Rogers was
appearing there and asked me if I planned to see him. I said no and
he said he wouldn't pay the money for that either.
He said he'd been to only one show in recent years, taking his
wife and kids and paying $70 a pop for the tickets. I asked him who
the performer was and he said it was the Three Tenors. I'd pay to
hear them, too, but they weren't in town.
It made me sad to drive around town and not see Sinatra, Dean
Martin or Sammy Davis Jr.'s names on marquees anymore. Wayne Newton
did show up at ASTA's opening session to sing a couple of songs,
but even he admitted it was too early in the morning to be doing
that. "So this is what 10 a.m. looks like," Newton said.
Another woman driver told me she used to be a cashier at a
casino, but after years of doing it, she had to give it up because
she was starting to make mistakes. She said she almost gave a
customer far more than he was cashing in, and she decided to ask
her boss for a leave of absence.
Driving a cab wasn't as hard, I guess, even though traffic on
the Strip can get pretty jammed up.
The continuing explosion of interest in Vegas is astounding.
Another driver said something like 2 million more people will use
the airport this year compared to last year. As fast as the hotel
owners put up new properties, the people come and fill them.
My personal high moment of the week at ASTA was the Travel
Writer of the Year award to Travel Weekly's longtime Washington
bureau chief Fran Durbin. I've worked with Fran since 1972 and
never met a better journalist or more decent person.
In her brief acceptance speech, she thanked travel agents for
giving her all those good stories over the years.
Fran, your friends at Travel Weekly thank you.