Leaving Las Vegas, Sort Of

So my previous travel post was about Rotorua, New Zealand, which everyone refers to as Rotovegas. I mentioned that no one could describe to us what they meant by associating it with Las Vegas, partially because few New Zealanders had been to Las Vegas itself. So why, then, the association? And what does that tell us about the Las Vegas brand?

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Rotovegas, by Any Other Name, Would Still Smell… Not Sweet

For the past few days, we have been staying in Rotorua, a town about 3 hours southeast of Auckland by bus. Rotorua is famous for its sulphurous odor and plentiful geothermal activity, and is known by the locals as “Rotovegas.” Two people mentioned this to us on our way out of Auckland. Intrigued by the consistency, we asked why they thought it was like Las Vegas. We didn’t get much of an answer. We assumed that none of the people who called it Rotovegas had ever been to Las Vegas, but as it turned out, the girl at the sausage cart in the harbor had lived in Vegas for a few months. She didn’t clarify the slogan much except to say, “Don’t get your hopes up.” Which I think sums up Vegas pretty well.