We've only got anecdotal evidence so far but January is looking a little soft for CityCenter and Aria.  Recall that Aria will open on December 16th.  Up until the last week of the month, December is a pretty soft month so we are focusing on the first quarter of 2010 to monitor the Aria performance.

This week we received our first promotional email from Aria as shown below.  This wasn't our first from the MGM portfolio, however, those come hot and heavy.  The Aria offer looks pretty good: $159 plus $75 in resort credits; a much better deal than the lowest rate we got from our Aria room survey. 

CITYCENTER PROMO - citycenter promo

 

The following chart details the Aria discount to the average of the "premium" properties (Bellagio, Venetian, Wynn Las Vegas) over the period measured.  As seen, Aria is quoting rates at a mid-single digit discount.  The real discount is probably even larger since we are not quoting from Wynn Encore and Venetian Palazzo, which bother typically garner a premium to their respective sister properties. 

 

CITYCENTER PROMO - aria vs comp

 

All of this is somewhat anecdotal.  The quoted rates are for free and indpendent travelers so we are not capturing over half of the business attributable to conference, group, and tour and travel.  We are mainly concerned with how the rate and discount trends as we get closer to January.  In any event, the anecdotal evidence so far leans toward disappointing.