Atlantic City's Tropicana acts to revive reputation

ATLANTIC CITY - Acknowledging it made major mistakes last year that drastically hurt its business, the Tropicana Casino & Resort plans to quickly rehire more than 150 workers and launch an advertising campaign to help remake its tarnished reputation.

The casino is struggling to recover from an abysmal year in which former owners, Columbia-Sussex Corp., of Crestview Hills, Ky., eliminated 900 jobs and alienated customers with poor service and dirty facilities.

Those problems led the state Casino Control Commission to strip Columbia-Sussex of its casino license in December, and the state is now seeking a buyer for the property, which includes New Jersey's largest hotel at 2,129 rooms. The casino is operating under a state-appointed trustee.

"If you look at 2007, it was a tumultuous year and a difficult period for our employees and our customers," Tropicana president Mark Giannantonio said in an interview yesterday.

"It is over. It has come and gone. There is nothing I can do to change what happened," he said. "We are fighting back now, and we're going to be fierce in winning back our customers."

The first step in that process is bringing back some of the workers that Columbia-Sussex laid off, including about 20 slots attendants. Within 60 days, it plans to bring back 150 more workers in departments throughout the property, Giannantonio said.

The goal is to improve the Tropicana's condition by the time it is handed over to a new buyer by the end of April. To do that, the casino has increased its cash-back and promotional programs, including comps for gamblers, in order to rebuild its customer base.

That is an expensive proposition, one on which other Atlantic City casinos are cutting back as their revenues plunge because of competition from slots parlors in Pennsylvania and New York.

The Tropicana's revenue was down 20.9 percent in December from December 2006. For the year, it was down 12.1 percent, the worst performance of any Atlantic City casino.

But the Tropicana needs comps and promotions to try to increase the number of people visiting its casino and hotel. Embarrassing revelations about cleanliness and service that surfaced during a month of hearings on whether Columbia-Sussex should have its license renewed in November sent customers fleeing.

"A lot of the negative things people read in the newspapers made them decide to go elsewhere," Giannantonio said. "At one point, our call center was getting more cancellations than reservations."

To combat those perceptions, the Tropicana is starting an expensive advertising plan today, with 30-second commercials broadcast on major stations in the New York and Philadelphia markets. The theme is "Experience the difference."

The Tropicana spent $30 million last year renovating the 500 rooms in its south tower, and redid significant areas of its casino floor as well.