Air worries may dampen bowlers traffic

For downtown Reno hotel and casino properties, this is a bowling year a year in which the arrival of thousands of participants in the Women's International Bowling Congress tournament fill rooms and keep cash registers ringing.

The operator of one downtown property worries, however, that the bowling boom may fall short of expectations because of worries about air travel.

Ferenc Szony, president and chief executive officer of The Sands Regent, said last week that bookings from East Coast and Midwest bowlers appear to be lagging for the women's bowling tournament.

The event runs March 20 through July 8 at the National Bowling Stadium.

Reservations are on track, however, from bowlers who plan to drive to Reno for the tournament, Szony told securities analysts.

The Sands Regent owns the Sand Regency hotel and casino in downtown Reno as well as the Gold Ranch Casino and RV Resort at Verdi.

While Szony and his team keep a close eye on bookings from bowlers, they're also looking for ways to further develop their locals market particularly at Gold Ranch.

That property, the first casino along Interstate 80 for travelers coming from California, already draws good business from the Verdi area as well as Truckee, Szony said.

The company doesn't have plans to add hotel rooms at Gold Ranch, but it's focused on building occupancy at the 105- space RV park.

Locals business is important, too, at the Sands Regency, Szony said.

Renoarea consumers account for about 30 percent of the property's business currently, and the company hopes to grow that figure to the range of 35-37 percent.

The reason? Locals are profitable customers, and their spending habits are more stable than those of visitors.

The Sands Regent is painfully aware of the instability of tourist spending after bad weather late in December sent its quarterly financial performance into the tank.

October and November were good months, Szony told analysts, but the late- December storms that closed I-80 to travel from California resulted in a loss for the quarter ended Dec.

31.

The company reported a loss of $234,000 on revenues of $12.6 million in the quarter.

That compares with a loss of $252,000 on revenues of $7.5 million a year earlier.

The revenues rose sharply because of the acquisition of Gold Ranch in the middle of 2001.

The first weeks of the new year, however, appear to be back on track, Szony said.

Both the Super Bowl and the Martin Luther King weekend generated good business for the company.

Along with the locals market, Szony said his company continues to focus on marketing itself in Sacramento and California's Central Valley.

That marketing effort, which already has been productive, will move to the front burner when the United Auburn Indian Community opens its casino along the I- 80 corridor in Auburn, Calif.

"It's very important that we be as well positioned in Sacramento as we can be," Szony said.

Although the Auburn casino is worrisome, The Sands Regent executive said he sees reason for optimism about visitor traffic to Reno.

The newly renovated convention center, he said, continues to draw positive feedback and bookings.

He said Reno has a reputation for over-promising and under-delivering to convention planners, but the renovated convention center is allowing the city to shake that reputation.

Still, he said, the convention center feels significant competitive pressure from the Mandalay Bay convention facility in Las Vegas, which is targeting the midsized regional conventions that are the cornerstone of Reno's business.

The city's competitive position should be strengthened, he said, with remodeling and expansion of the bowling stadium into a multi-purpose events center.

That project is expected to be complete in about 18 months.