Wynn Resorts has always been at the upper end of the Las Vegas luxury market, and on Thursday, the company’s top executive explained how it has fared during the summer visitor lull.
Craig Billings, CEO of Wynn Resorts Ltd., gave his explanation to investors and analysts in a conference call announcing the company’s third quarter results.
“Wynn Las Vegas is not necessarily built for those visiting Las Vegas on a tight budget,” Billings said in response to an analyst’s question about the social media backlash to the price cut.
“Our customer is generally not the customer that focuses solely on cost,” he said. “But they’re the kind of customers who are relentless when it comes to value for their dollar. Their expectations of perceived value couldn’t be higher.”
The company remains tight-lipped about its pricing.
“We don’t ambush clients with unexpected charges,” he said. “So contrary to what you might expect, our minibar prices are a fraction of some others in the market. We held off charging for parking as long as we could and really only started doing it when we were in danger of becoming the city car park.”
Billing recognizes that customers pay high prices at Wynn – but customers get what they pay for.
“Yes, our customer is paying a premium room rate, but we don’t want them to feel nickel and dimed. It’s actually counterproductive to creating high perceived value, so because of that, we haven’t seen that pushback on pricing that others in the market might have, or at least we’ve seen on social media.”
He brought up the narrative that Las Vegas is too expensive.
“Las Vegas is actually full of low-cost options and values. It really is. But historically, it’s also been a city where you could get away from your worries for three days and experience world-class service and beautiful settings. In other words, a city of really high perceived value. Any erosion of that perceived value will manifest itself in an experience beneath itself, but read a lot of that message as you will. it’s been more about the value for the dollar and not the dollar in itself, and it’s just not us. That’s why we haven’t seen that recovery.
“If prices were compressed by 50 percent in Las Vegas tomorrow, would we feel it? Of course we would. But we will always have a price premium and the reason is that we deliver a lot of value.”
Billings and his team provided updates on the company’s Macau properties where the company experienced “impressive” cash flow growth and construction in the UAE at Wynn Al Marjan Island. He said crews are pouring the last of the concrete on the top floors of the resort’s 70-story tower, which is expected to open in early 2027.
For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Wynn Resorts reported net income of $128.5 million, 85 cents per share, on revenue of $1.834 billion, up 8.3 percent from the third quarter of 2024. That compares with a net loss of $5.4 million, 29 cents per share, on revenue of $1.693 billion.
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