The reason I do so is that I am in Arizona where parking is most often free, even in the big cities. But in some places, like the East and West coasts, I find that people are more likely to pay for parking and accept it.
The fact of the matter is that we are–for good or bad–a car-based society. I dare say that Las Vegas is not geared to the pedestrian. Phoenix definately is not.
And I am not railing against all parking fees. I pay them in downtown Phoenix when there is no choice. And I agree that employees should not block customer-convenient spots. But at a casino? A line too far, IMHO.
I’m sure that Las Vegas in general is not geared toward pedestrians. But I’m also pretty sure that a fair amount of people will continue to visit the casinos even if there is a separate charge for parking. It may mean that people don’t go from an MGM casino to a Caesar’s casino - but the casinos don’t really want you to do that , anyway. It may mean that when I fly from NYC to Vegas , I don’t bother renting a car and therefore don’t leave the strip to go outlet shopping or to an off-property restaurant for dinner, but they don’t want you to do that either. (this is actually what I’ve been doing lately- I’ve found it’s not worth the money to rent a car when I go certain places because the only time we use it is between the airport and the hotel)
And like everything else, when something is free, it really isn’t. It just means everyone pays for it whether they use it or not. Harrah’s in AC used to charge a resort fee , and a separate free for wifi. They raised the resort fee and now wifi is included. Great for the people who want and used to pay for wifi - they now pay less. Not so great for the people that didn’t, because they now pay more. Same thing for fitness centers, checked baggage and anything else that can be either charged for separately or included - if it’s free, it means everyone is paying for it whether they use it or not. It’s easier to see in some situations ( like when the fee is raised and additional services are included) and it doesn’t mean that when a charge is newly instituted the price goes down but someone’s always paying for it- the question is only whether everyone is paying or only those who use the service.
That’s a point, unlike the accursed “resort fee” that is docked to everyone regardless of whether you use any of its alleged goods, the parking fee at least is a charge you only pay if you park.
(And yet in the end everyone ended up charging the hated resort fee – the stockhoders and bankers of those who held out got on their case like “WTF are you doing leaving money on the table? We invest in you to profit not to be nice guys” ; and the people booking travel kept booking on the basis of lowest quoted room rate w/o considering the fees so being the nice guys wasn’t helping the business.)
Why would you rent a car just to drive around the strip? There’s the Deuce, the monorail and Uber. I’m guessing they are doing this because demand for parking is dropping, so may as well convert it into space that generates more revenue (more Casino floorspace) or at least make money off it.
Ditto what Lare said about many places having free parking. Making your employees park relatively far away, or behind the store, is easy enough to do.
And I’ll mention that casinos on the strip, or on Fremont Street, aren’t the only ones in Vegas. There are tons of casinos scattered about with plenty of free parking. No glitzy shows or cute architectures, but casinos on the Strip wouldn’t want to drive customers to them. High rollers will obviously get parking comped anyway.