Las Vegas’ most luxurious spots

By Shivani Vora

updated 6:08 p.m. ET May 31, 2007

Mammoth hotels with 24-hour casinos. Red-hot celebrity chefs. Luxury shopping. Endless entertainment. Shamelessly lavish hotel suites.

Just another day in Sin City.

''No other city does everything so over-the-top as Las Vegas,'' says Alexis C. Kelley, associate editor of "Fodor’s Travel," the travel guide series. "People come to see the spectacle: the neon lights, the replicas of Paris, Venice, NYC, the beautiful people, the money. But they return for the entertainment value.''

Las Vegas, in which the star-packed "Ocean's Thirteen," opening next week, is set, has seen phenomenal growth in the past decade. Thirty million people visited in 1996; that number jumped to 39 million last year, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). In 2006, gambling revenue increased to $8.2 billion from $7.6 billion a year earlier.

And it shows no signs of slowing down. There were 99,000 hotel and motel rooms in the city in 1996. Last year, that number had jumped to 132,000. Factor in current construction, and this number should climb to around a 171,000 in 2010, according to the LVCVA.

Luxe living
Perhaps the most significant change is that the city now caters to the luxury traveler with high-end restaurants, star performers and luxe hotels on the ascent.

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''In recent years, Vegas has started to attract a high-end crowd,'' says Bryan Allison, vice president of marketing at Vegas.com, an online travel and concierge service. ''The people used to a certain [luxurious] type of experience can get that now."

Restaurant Guy Savoy, the eponymous eatery by the French three-star Michelin chef, opened at Caesar’s Palace in 2005. Singer Celine Dion started performing at The Colosseum in 2003--the $95 million theater was built specially for her show. Singer Bette Midler will replace her later this year. Luxury shoppers can peruse boutiques like Louis Vuitton, Manolo Blahnik and Cartier. Upscale properties such as the Four Seasons, the Wynn and the Ritz-Carlton now set the standard for hotels.

© Cirque du Soleil Beatles' "Love" by Cirque de Soleil at the Mirage features deft acrobatics set to Beatles songs performed in a custom-built theater with 360-degree seating, panoramic video projection and surround sound.

As a result, visitors currently spend more on creature comforts than on gaming. Ten years ago, Clark County (which contains Las Vegas) got 57 percent of its revenue from gaming. Last year, that number dropped to 47.7 percent. The remainder came from lodging, food, entertainment and other non-gambling spending.

''Gaming is a major part of why people come to Vegas, but it's no longer the dominant reason,'' Allison says. "There is so much more here than just casinos.''

But with myriad choices in Las Vegas, it’s not easy to find the best of the best. Still, with expert help, it can be done.

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