All Things Travel: Greater Boston Rolls The Dice On Casinos
BOSTON (CBS) – The most important decision for Boston travel and tourism for the next decade will be made this week.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is holding a series of meetings that will lead to a vote on whether Everett or Revere will get the license to operate a resort casino that could open in late 2017.
Mohegan Sun wants to build on property owned by Suffolk Downs in Revere. Wynn Resorts has staked out property once used as a chemical plant that is now vacant. Each side has spent millions to gain approval of the project.
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A referendum on the future of the gambling in Massachusetts will be on the November 4 ballot.
If a resort casino in the Boston region is opened, it will have the biggest impact on travel and tourism since the waterfront convention center opened a decade ago. It will also have a major impact on Logan Airport traffic. Both sites are less than five miles from the airport.
Logan is on its way to having another record year. More than 31 million passengers are expected to use the airport this year, an increase of more than a million people. Traffic using the Ted Williams, Callahan and Sumner tunnels is already heavy in the evening rush hours.
Tourism spending in Massachusetts was up 4.2 percent in calendar year 2013 to an estimated $17.7 billion, according to the U.S. Travel Association.
A study made for Suffolk Downs a few years back indicated that 80-percent of people coming to their site would use one of the tunnels.
One of the positive aspects of the Mohegan Sun proposal is that the MBTA Blue Line Beachmont Station will have a direct connection to the casino. Suffolk Downs has also said that the only way to save horse racing in Massachusetts is to have a casino help pay the bills.
The Boston market has a strong economy and has daily flights to both Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
New casinos opening in New York State and Pennsylvania have recently forced four casinos to shut down in Atlantic City.
The proposed Boston casino operators have talked about their plans bringing more international tourists here and are popular with people coming to conventions.
James Rooney, CEO of the Convention Center Authority, made this comment a couple of years ago: "I have never heard one person wanting to bring a convention to Boston ask me whether we had gambling."
The real question to be answered in the November vote is whether the Commonwealth wants casinos.
Bob Weiss reports on business travel on Mondays at 5:55 a.m. on WBZ NewsRadio 1030.
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