Sep. 2--Sam's Town boss Joe Fuscaldo knows competition is everywhere. 

He oversees the daily operations of the Boulder Highway hotel-casino that competes with the offerings of Station Casinos, Coast Resorts, video poker bars, restaurants, grocery stores and any other setting that offers the mechanized games of chance. 

There's also a re-energized entry in the battle for local dollars: Strip megaresorts. 

As summer travel to Las Vegas has waned amid the continued economic uncertainty, the Aladdin, Las Vegas Hilton and Rio have increased their efforts to reach the estimated $1.5 billion locals market, Fuscaldo said. 

"It's raised the stakes," he said. "There's just a lot of competition in the market." 

Q: Sam's Town seems to have undergone a major transformation from a relatively tired property into something akin to a Station Casinos or Coast Resorts neighborhood complex with the completion of its $86 million renovation and expansion. 

A: It's really become a beautiful property with a lot of variable things to do. That was our objective, and we've accomplished our objective. We've needed to keep in tune with what's taken place in the market. Over the years we've had a lot of communication with our customer. We have the personal touch. We haven't done a lot of the automation that others have done. We're a very comfortable place, a very personal place, and we want to keep that. We want to hold onto our basic concept. 

Q: What were you trying to achieve with the renovation completed in November? 

A: We came up with a concept that we thought was right for the location and area we were in. We've had a lot of communication with the customer. We took an approach that you can do anything you want to do at Sam's Town, but we really didn't want to lose the flavor of what makes it Sam's Town. We didn't take the Station approach to some degree. We didn't want to go to a kiosk, a system where you press a button and you get a comp slip. We wanted people on the floor talking to customers. 

Q: That said, Sam's Town looks more like a Station property with the new movie theaters, the buffet. 

A: We took some of their approach, but we wanted to make sure we had the customer service, our friendly atmosphere. When you want someone to talk to, Sam's Town has someone here. Most of our customers are repeat customers. Eighty percent of our business is repetitive. 

Q: And you feel Station Casinos is too automated in its dealings with customers? 

A: We're not a computer. We're computerized, but we did not go as far as they went. They've taken (employee contact) out of it. They force you to go to a kiosk rather than a person. It's very important to our customers to have that contact. People come here for enjoyment, to relax. 

Q: You had several consecutive quarters where the Sam's Town remodeling hurt your parent company's results, and once it opened it took a while for people to realize the work was completed. Was it frustrating? 

A: We started out slower than we anticipated. Our construction took a long time. We opened the property and the economic conditions weren't the best when we opened. The issue of the stock market wasn't where it was in November as it was in September. If we had opened six months sooner we probably would've had a bigger opening. The showroom was brand new. The theater complex, the child-care center, we had to figure out how that all worked and what the customer wanted. We've seen a substantial improvement, and also for people to realize that Sam's Town had these amenities, for people to realize they had headline entertainment we hadn't seen before. 

Q: It also seems as though you've tried to broaden your demographic, reaching out to a younger crowd, a more ethnically diverse crowd. 

A: We've been able to diversify ourselves very well and also retain our loyal customer base. We've been able to do that through the nightclub scenario and Sam's town live. We bring in people like Gladys Knight, CCR (Credence Clearwater Revisited). That's something that's new to this area. For a customer to understand we had this kind of facility took us a lot of time, a lot of advertising dollars. 

Q: What was your demographic before the remodeling. What is it now? 

A: Before the remodel it was 45 to 52 years old with a midmarket income ($40,000 to $50,000). We still have our core market, and we've been able to add to different pockets of business. 

Q: With all of the meal specials and cash giveaways, it appears as though the locals market is as competitive as ever. 

A: Absolutely, it is. Everybody is competing for market share. What you've seen over the last several months is people are willing to do things they would not normally do so far as price points and reduced price points. 

Q: Give some examples. 

A: It's across the board, a discount on your operations to the point where it doesn't really make sense, give food away, points away, room discounts. Those things all affect the bottom line. You need to balance that. One thing out there in the locals market, there's a lot of opportunity for business to have food operations and bar businesses. When you take a look at a four-mile radius (from Sam's Town) you have three major casinos and maybe 100 bars with food, grocery stores, convenience stores and that continues to increase. 

Q: So how do you take it to the next level? 

A: We provide customer service, a relationship with people. Everybody's going to say that, but that's our foundation. We're able to do things differently to the point where we can create a lot of activity: special events, New Year's events, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, cash giveaways, give cash back to customers. We create a reason for you to come here. It's the execution, but you have to be able to manage that process effectively. 

VITAL STATISTICS 

Name: Joe Fuscaldo. 

Age: 49. 

Position: Senior vice president and regional manager for Boyd Gaming Corp.'s Boulder Strip division. 

Family: Wife, Victoria; daughter, Rose; son, Joe Jr.; two grandchildren. 

Education: Bachelor's degree in hotel administration, 1973, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 

Work history: Senior vice president and regional manager for Boyd Gaming, 1998-present; vice president and general manager of Sam's Town, Tunica, Miss., 1993-98; vice president and general manager Jokers Wild, Henderson, 1992-93; casino cage and credit manager for Eldorado, Henderson, 1989-92; also served as a credit executive for Caesars Palace; a marketing director for Del Webb Corp. in Atlantic City; and as a credit executive for the Playboy Club in Atlantic City. 

Hobbies: Fishing, hunting, riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle 

Hometown: Clarksburg, W.Va. 

In Las Vegas since: 1969. 

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(c) 2001, Las Vegas Review-Journal. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.