Las Vegas is a tourist town, built specifically to provide the things that travelers want. It all started as a small stopover area, where people who were traveling across the desert from the east coast to California could get some much needed relief. For the majority of their trip, travelers would be able to find food or lodging every few hours of travel, as the areas they were moving through had been established and populated. The true hardships came as they crossed the Mojave Desert in Nevada, where you could expect multiple days of travel time without a single area of population offering any comfort. The area was simply too inhospitable for people to settle there and provide the things that travelers needed, so a large gap of area was unpopulated.
Las Vegas was born in the middle of that gap, and grew in popularity and wealth as more tourists moved to California chasing gold and silver. Las Vegas itself became an area that survived by selling people what they wanted in the form of alcohol, gambling and even prostitution on the outskirts of the city. This success furthered the growth of the city, which then began to be viewed as a destination instead of a simple stop over, ultimately attracting visitors from California and Utah.
Las Vegas today is known for offering world-class tourist attractions, hotels and restaurants. It’s popularity over the years has allowed it to not only be a destination, but one of the most popular destinations on earth. This brought the offerings of the city up from simple needs to being the best of anything that can be found. You no longer just round food and rooms, but now can find the world’s best restaurants and hotels. This is why so many of the tour groups that provide tours that begin in Las Vegas and travel outside the city to national parks have now begun offering tours of the city as well. The travelers who are not coming to Las Vegas for the attractions of the city, but instead are coming to use the city as a starting point for nature tours outside of it, are now spending a few extra days on their vacations to explore the city itself. Because they are generally unfamiliar with the offerings, and have limited amounts of time to spend exploring, the tour groups are condensing the best of Las Vegas into small tours. A perfect example is the “foodie” tours that are growing in popularity.
If you do not have the time to spend making a reservation and possibly spending hundreds of dollars per person on a restaurant, you can now sample from multiple restaurants and dishes in a single afternoon. Generally taking place either on the strip or downtown, the “Las Vegas foodie tours” are allowing visitors to try the best that the city can offer in small portions all within a few hours. You can go home talking about how you visited four of the best restaurants in the city, and was treated to a VIP experience, without all of the hassles that go with it.
Martin Wynn
