[RunDownHouse]

I hardly think you can draw an analogy between the fountains and the entire atmosphere shift that occured with "theme" hotels, especially since the fountains' status as a part of that shift is very debatable.

I don't think anyone is planning their vacation around the fountains; people aren't saying, "Gee, I love Reno, but those fountains!" I don't think they said that even in the past, but I don't know of any way to prove/research that. And to get even deeper, are people choosing to stay specifically at the Bellagio doing so because of the fountains? Out of all the people that derive value from the fountains over any given length of time, how many are actually Bellagio guests?

On the other hand, I can't imagine the fountains are any kind of a significant cost. If he's hinging his argument on the fact that Bellagio would not be "much" worse off without the fountains, you should ask him to put some numbers behind his assertion that its really a large expense.