By JOSH RESNEK
Tourism to Boston remains stalled in a post-pandemic twist.
Though visitation to Boston is rising, the mid-week numbers coming into New England at Logan Airport remain unnaturally low, while weekend, summer, and holiday travel continue to improve.
Encore Boston Harbor Casino and Hotel is reflective of this scenario.
Weekends are busy. Weekdays are a bust.
The hotel remains largely vacant.
The casino is humming.
Encore’s casino took in $52.9 million during the past 30 days.
Table games without poker brought in $22.4 million. Slots took in $30.4 million.
That’s an incredible sum of money.
Encore’s casino took in more slots revenue than the state’s two other casino and slot locations at MGM Springfield and Plainridge.
It hummed to the tune of an extra $2.8 million in gaming revenues month to month from May to June.
That’s about a 7% gain in gaming revenues alone from month to month.
Analysts claim that points to a great summer ahead for Encore and the gaming business in general all over the nation.
By comparison, slot revenues at Foxwoods in Connecticut were $40.1 million for the month, up 5.7%, according to the Hartford Business Journal.
The need for more employees at Encore remains high.
Encore in Everett is listing about 400 available jobs on its Internet jobs site.
At any other time in recent history, this would have been considered the stuff of a boomtown.
In today’s unemployment benefit fueled marketplace, filling those jobs is easier said than done.
Encore continues to struggle with finding its place in Boston.
Boston has proven to be a difficult marketplace.
Finding its reason to exist beyond gambling remains a question mark.
New corporate leadership at the top of the Wynn ladder at Encore Everett is now in place.
Let’s see what happens.