MGM to charge for parking on Vegas Strip, bucking tradition

LAS VEGAS – In a city built on luring tourists with cheap thrills and free cocktails, a big part of the Las Vegas Strip will soon slash its most basic freebie: parking.

MGM Resorts International announced Friday it will become the first major casino company to start charging visitors for parking. The move could bring in millions of dollars annually and change a tourism hot spot that increasingly caters to visitors who come for pricey attractions besides gambling.

The move follows another trend MGM pioneered: the “resort fee,” now the standard on the Strip.

Sin City’s largest hotel-casino operator said it will charge up to $10 for overnight self-parking at most of its Strip properties starting this spring, coinciding with the April opening of the Las Vegas-based company’s T-Mobile Arena.

MGM Resorts has 35,310 rooms and 37,000 parking spots on the Strip, which are at a premium during major events. The parking fees will come at Mandalay Bay, Delano, Luxor, Excalibur, Monte Carlo, New York-New York, Vdara, Aria, Bellagio, The Mirage and MGM Grand.

Valet parking will cost more, but some parking at the Circus Circus hotel and the Crystals and Mandalay Bay Place shopping centers will still be free, as will MGM’s properties in Mississippi, Michigan and China.

The fees fall in line with casinos’ focus on growing their database of gamblers through reward programs, according to gambling analyst Alex Bumazhny.

Of the city’s 41 million visitors in 2014, 58 percent drove to Las Vegas, tourism officials said.