In the beginning, there’s going to be a novelty about all of this.A honeymoon period, if you will.Major League Baseball in Las Vegas? Who would have thought it? But the city took a huge step toward that when the state Senate agreed to fund $380 million toward the construction of a ballpark for the relocation of the Oakland franchise.But after that, it’s up to the travel advisors and the hotel operators.Is tourism enough to help sustain a woeful franchise for Las Vegas like the Oakland Athletics? It is if travel advisors and hotels get creative.Las Vegas was able to garner an expansion franchise in the National Hockey League and was able to lure the Oakland Raiders to switch towns and build a behemoth like Allegiant Stadium. Now it is one of the premier facilities in the country.But baseball is a different beast.Hockey teams have 41 home dates and football has just eight or nine home games. Many fans in cold weather sites would love a trip to Las Vegas and to see their hockey team in action built around other things. As for football, well, football is football. Each home game is almost like an event, and that isn’t too tough to sell in Las Vegas.But baseball is different.It’s a long season, and when the product on the field isn’t that good, it’s hard to convince people to take a trip as part of seeing the team play. Fortunately, Las Vegas is more like a city that never sleeps, and there are plenty of things to do besides baseball.Start with the hotels, many of which have casinos and gambling is among the main attractions in Las Vegas. Then there are the residencies. Imagine seeing a baseball game on a Friday night and Adele on Saturday. Sounds like a pretty good vacation to me.But can it be sustained through the early part of the spring, all of the summer, and the beginning of fall? That remains to be seen. But there is still a stadium to be built, and the team is not expected to relocate for a couple of years at a minimum. Travel advisors have plenty of time to get with the local hotels to create special packages. Remember, they did a great job with Allegiant Air to bring in out-of-town football customers.Surely, there are people who will be enticed by a couple of free baseball tickets included in their package to book for Las Vegas.But are there enough people?That’s the daunting task facing travel advisors and hotel operators in the coming years.
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Appeared first on: Travelpulse.com
