Most important thing on a brick & mortar casino website for you

Quote: FleaStiff

Your Sample Statement sounds like it was drafted by an attorney to be included in an SEC document of some sort. Well, okay... its not quite that bad.

It's a difficult judgement to make. I assume that the reason Casinos don't give any information about getting to the casino from the airport, is that they are very afraid of getting blacklisted by the taxi drivers.

For instance, let's look at the taxi fare to Tropicana. Assume 2+11/13 miles which is slightly over the estimated distance (taxis round off to nearest 1/13 mile)
The taxi fare should be $3.30 pick up fare + $1.80 airport charge + $7.40 for the distance = $12.50 . Now if there are no time fees at all, that would be the fare.

Assuming a slow ride in traffic where the entire trip is under allotted speed and average 7 mph on average, the trip would take 24.5 minutes (only 10 minutes over the "no time charge" travel time), and the slow speed charges would be $12.25 nearly doubling the fixed fees and distance charge. For this trip, I have to believe that there are almost always some "time fees", and the 7 mph for the entire trip is more or less a worse case scenario.

Even an honest taxi driver would be hard pressed not to work within the system. Every red light that he has to sit behind makes him a $1, so he has little motivation to make a light.

Assuming a completely honest taxi drive who just sat in traffic for 24.5 minutes, has a customer who is now confronted with showing a $24.75 taxi bill. If the patron read your statement on the Tropicana web site, he may begin an argument with the driver.

If you poll people on what they pay for a Vegas taxi fare, very often you will find that it is twice the estimated fares. I have to believe that the hidden fare of the slowing ride is responsible for much of that difference. It's not that I believe Vegas drivers are more honest than NYC taxi drivers, it's just that it is harder to go the long way in Vegas, because it is very obvious what you are doing. In NYC it is much easier to pad the trip a little.

If you are going to Circus circus instead of Tropicana it is an additional 2 miles which should cost and additional $5.20 for the distance charge. However, the possibility of running up three or four times that amount in "time charges" depending on traffic and lights is very high.

If the taxi driver gets pissed off enough at the casino, he will do everything in his power to avoid driving there. So I have to think that is the primary reason casinos have no information on their sites about the cost to get there from the airport.

More than one responsible Vegas drinker has been burned on these time fees for a taxi. He may know that there is a $3.30 fee for pick up, and he figures he is 10-12 miles from the bar @ $2.60 per mile. The "time fees" are often advertised as $30/hour, but he doesn't figure he'll be asking the driver to wait outside the bar. The patron goes home drunk in the taxi, and the taxi drives slowly and the meter reads $80. To add insult to injury, the taxi driver pulls away if he gets a $100 bill saying "Thank you for the tip". Our responsible inebriated drinker is wondering how it cost him so much to get home.

I understand it is highly variable and that darned low-speed surcharge can be difficult.

A Vegas cab driver can not refuse to take someone to a lawful destination but he can refuse to pick someone up at a particular casino and he can refuse to recommend any place to his fares and can even make negative comments about a casino once he hears his passengers destination or questions. I don't think the casinos like to get on the wrong side of cab drivers and a casino can give a Trespass Warning to a cabbie but it is valid only for twenty-four hours.

Long hauling can be cited but in reality it really doesn't add all that much to the fare, it can be faster traffic and the cab companies are the ones that pressure the drivers to long haul.

Taxi drivers don't like Bar Calls. Usually by the time they arrive, the person no longer wants a taxi, having already left or having found someone they want to be with rather than search somewhere else. If a bartender calls then a drunk can usually pay the cabbie twenty bucks to simply drive off but this depends on the cabbie and the bar.

At a casino, its often obvious when Security is putting someone in a cab and often a doorman will make it up to the First-in-Line cabby if its going to be a short haul with a drunk or something.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Is your target market in Asia? If so, you will need to modify your site to appeal to local cultural tastes.

I appreciate it when sites have views of the various classes of rooms available in the hotel (if rooms are available at your casino).

Also, please make sure the staff that handles the online reservations has a method of forwarding the special requests to the front desk staff. Nothing bugs me more than having to restate everything once I arrive at check in.

Once again thanks to all. I wasn't sure I would get many responses but this is proving to be an invaluable suggestion thread for me. I am compiling a list based on the content of this thread and hope to get some of the simple things done then there is also a wish list of the more complex things such as the idea which was mentioned to have an interactive floor plan where you click on tables and see the limits, restaurant and see the menu etc. that's a very good idea but would take a lot more work with the web designers/programmers. I am starting by fixing our landing page, making our navigation more intuitive and focusing on the gaming page, as it's useless at the moment. Our target market is in Asia, yes.

Thanks to everyone.