Rooms under $30; meals from 99c in America

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 27

Rooms under $30; meals from 99c in America

By

LES BLOXHAM

travel editor

“Breakfast special, 99 cents” the Las Vegas hotel sign promised; surely there had to be a catch. In New Zealand, 99 U.S. cents equates roughly to $1.70 and one is hard pressed to get a cup of coffee here for that.

So on my second morning in Las Vegas I joined a queue for what I half expected to be a serving of cornflakes and coffee.

Indeed, there were cornflakes and coffee — and also fruit, eggs, ham, sausages, bacon, yoghurt, and rolls, all for 99 cents, plus tax. The only “catch” was the length of the queue and a 40 minute wait for a table. A local cabbie told me later that cheap breakfasts were a regular feature of the casino city’s hotels and that if I had shopped around, I would have found a similar meal for 50 cents.

The cost of meals and accommodation in most United States cities has remained remarkably stable over the past few years. Meals generally do cost more than 99 cents, but a satisfying three-course steak dinner can be had in a modest restaurant for as little as SUSB (SNZI3). Clean, comfortable motel rooms are available from about SUS2S (SNZ43) away from the centre of large cities and popular resorts. One can pay much more — in excess of SUSIOO (SNZI72) for a night of luxury in a top class hotel.

According to the American Hotel and Motel Association, the average room rate for motels and hotels (based on 44,000 properties) last year was SUSS4 (SNZ93), an increase of 4 per cent over the previous year. The association reports a big increase in the number of "all-suite” hotels — establishments that offer all the facilities found in most of New Zealand’s quality motor hotels and lodges.