Chinese New Year is a good bet in Las Vegas

The past decade has seen a particular blossoming of relationships between Las Vegas and China as MGM Resorts, Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands have opened several casino-hotels in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority opened a tourism office in Shanghai in 2008, two years after Macau displaced Vegas as the world’s biggest gambling market. (Singapore, where Sands also owns a resort, is expected to bump Las Vegas down to No. 3, possibly as soon as this year.)

Yet, Nikodemus said, that boom seems to have merely whetted the Chinese desire to see Las Vegas and its environs. The city greeted more than 263,000 Chinese tourists in 2012, according to the most recent data from the visitors’ authority. In 2006 the figure was about 87,000.

"Having a property over there that’s recognized and established is really important,” Nikodemus said of the MGM Grand Macau. “It’s become significantly easier to move our guests from there to Las Vegas for a different experience."

Those heavily sought-after Asian high-rollers are treated to private banquets attended by Chinese celebrities and showered with lavish gifts by hotel executives.

Across the city, hotels like Caesars Palace and the Venetian erect massive banners with the Chinese New Year greeting "Gung hay fat choy" in Chinese characters. Red paper lanterns and citrus trees with dangling red envelopes are ubiquitous, and the Bellagio’s Conservatory is done up for the holiday with eight horses, six Chinese children figures and a pagoda. The Conservatory, a free display, features 22,000 flowers, 600 shrubs and 60 bamboo trees.

“The first year we did this (in 2001), it was the Year of the Ram, and we got tremendous feedback not only from our guests but from our peers,” said Andres Garcia, the Bellagio’s executive director of horticulture. “Chinese guests felt we showed we were understanding their culture.”

The Wynn lion dance was put on by the California-based Yau Kung Moon troupe and involved more than 100 performers from Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company, which has performed lion dances at Strip hotels since 1989, regards the Vegas gig as the “most important of the year,” said Alisa Van, Yau Kung Moon’s assistant events coordinator and the daughter of its founder.

“It is the highest, the most fun,” she said. The troupe will appear in Chinatown events around California in the coming week, but “those are more parades — not necessarily a set show. In Las Vegas, it’s a performance. There’s a theatrical entertainment. We have dragons with neon lights.”

High-end shopping, too, is geared this week toward the Chinese celebrant. At the Crystals mall, crystal designer Lalique rolled out an equestrian collection of vases and sculptures. Watch vendors such as Tourbillon and even Swatch are offering horse-themed merchandise.

Many Chinese tourists appeared dazzled by what they found.

“I didn’t think this would be so nice,” said Jojo Wong, 31, of Taipei, watching the dotting-of-the-eyes ceremony that wakes up the dragon at the start of the lion dance at Wynn. “I thought I’d be missing the fun back home, but this is worth seeing at least once. It’s so Chinese and yet so American.”

The horse theme seems to have been an easy one to adapt, but other animals of the Chinese zodiac might not be.

“I do wonder how the casinos will decorate when it becomes the Year of the Rat,” Reed said. “Fortunately, we don't have to worry about that until 2020.”