I passed by a group of people speaking Spanish in the street while they were handing out cards advertising “escorts.”   Each card featured a different young woman.  My card was from April.  She was running a $35 special.   

 

In Spanish, I asked the man who handed me a card how long he had to stand out there.   He said ten hours a day, seven days a week.   When I told him he had difficult work, he misunderstood what I was saying. 

 

 He yelled out “trabajo” to his friends, thinking that I was offering work.  His colleagues gathered around me smiling and speaking too rapidly in Spanish for me to understand.  Finally I told them that I was just visiting from San Francisco.  They then understood that I didn’t have any work for them. But they all smiled back just the same and one of them told me in Spanish that San Francisco is a very nice city.

 

You may not be interested in taking advantage of April’s $35  special, but if you can get to Las Vegas now,  everything is on sale and you will be welcomed by very gracious and grateful people who will appreciate you bringing trabajo back.   

 

But don’t wait too long.   Conventions are Las Vegas’s lifeblood and the conventioneers are slowly returning.  As the business travel comes back and more tourists return, expect prices to creep back up again.   But for now, the bargains are phenomenal.    You can find a three star hotel on the Las Vegas strip for less than $30 for weekday stays.  And you can get luxury for budget prices at some of the city’s most upscale resorts. 

 

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority hopes that  LGBTs will be among the first to return en masse to America’s city of lights.   Just this spring, it launched a gay travel Web site (visitlasvegas.com/gaytravel.)

 

More of the city’s most upscale resorts are also actively courting the LGBT community.   Encore at Wynn is the latest hotel to target the gay market.   The ultra luxury hotel has also launched an LGBT Web site:    ( wynnlasvegas.com/pride)

 

The MGM-Mirage has a dozen different hotel properties   The stunning Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Mirage, and Bellagio  hotel-casinos have long been popular with gay visitors.    Mandalay Bay was voted as the best casino in a 2009 Gay.com readers’ poll.   As Nevada’s largest employer, MGM-Mirage welcomes same-sex commitment ceremonies and has long provided domestic partner benefits to its 54,700 employees. The Mirage Hotel-Casino features a huge sculpture of the city’s most famous gay couple, Siegfried and Roy,  near its main entrance on the Las Vegas strip. 

 

The other hotel-casino giant, Harrah’s, also actively promotes itself in the LGBT market.   One of Harrah’s hotels, Paris Las Vegas (www.harrahs.com/paris-glbt) , offers several packages for the LGBT market and actively advertises those deals.    Paris Las Vegas is just a short walk to Krave, the only gay club on the Las Vegas strip.  Like MGM Mirage, Harrah's offers domestic partner benefits to its employees. 

 

Part two:  Gay guide Las Vegas: Gay hotels

Part three:  Gay guide Las Vegas: Bars, nightclubs, saunas for gays and lesbians

Part four: Gay guide Las Vegas: Shows, Cher Bette Midler, Jubilee, Titanic, Body Worlds

Part five: Gay Guide Las Vegas:  Restaurants

Part six:  Las Vegas spas, some of the best spas in the country are in Las Vegas

Part seven: Las Vegas's latest attraction:  CityCenter

Part eight: Getting there, great airfare deals to Las Vegas.