Station strikes marketing deal with Days Inn

The 260-room hotel-casino on Flamingo Road near Interstate 15 will be renamed Days Inn-Las Vegas at Wild Wild West beginning Tuesday and will be marketed through Days Inn's reservation system, which is linked to a database with 2,100 Days Inn hotels worldwide.

Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Station Casinos will continue to own the property and the workers will remain employees of the casino company under the new partnership agreement with Days Inn, Station Casinos Chief Operating Officer Kevin Kelley said Monday.

The deal marks the return of Days Inn to the local market after five years. The Days Inn Town Hall Casino on Koval Lane behind Bally's was sold to Harrah's Entertainment in 2004 and razed.

Station Casinos decided to look for a partner to market the Wild Wild West, which has been forced to drastically cut its room rates because of the recession, Kelley said.

"The property got hammered during the current economy with Strip resorts lowering their room rates," Kelley said. "We started to look for ways to stabilize the rates."

Kelley said the company was pleased to find that a well-known brand such as Days Inn, which is part of the Wyndham Hotel Group, wasn't already in the market.

Days Inn President Clyde Guinn said the brand's large network of hotels and motels will enable his company to bring customers to Las Vegas that Station Casinos couldn't.

"We have the ability through our reservation system, our national sales and or frequency program to bring a lot of business to that hotel that they would have had ... to spend a lot of money to market to," Guinn said.

The hotel-casino is a popular overnight stop for truck drivers passing through the area.

Kelley said Station Casinos has spent "a few hundred thousand dollars" remodeling rooms and upgrading the property to the standards of Days Inn.

Guinn said his company wasn't concerned about entering an agreement with Station Casinos, which is in bankruptcy.

Kelley said the agreement with Days Inn could be expanded to some of Station Casinos' other 10 hotels if the partnership at the Wild Wild West goes well.

The Wild Wild West name will remain on Station Casinos' Web site with customers redirected to a Days Inn booking site.