Behind the Scenes at America's Biggest Hotel

Though boutique hotels are on the rise, their giant cousins are holding their own—and at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, that means providing a quality stay for 12,000 guests per night. As the Wall Street Journal explains in a feature, that also means 8,000 employees maintaining 5,000 rooms, with 46 tons of clean sheets. With the help of a machine, one employee can fold 1,000 folded hand towels per hour; dryers hold 300 pounds of dirty laundry; and a million-dollar washing machine cleans nonstop.

“It is like a little city in itself,” says a guest, and “the challenge,” says the hotel’s president. “is to cater to everybody without alienating anybody.” Customers—who stand in one of 36 lines at reception—choose from a selection of rooms ranging from $80 a night to $600 a night; the latter comes with 24-hour butler service. Despite the hurdles, however, the hotel managed a 96.8% occupancy rate in the second quarter, the Journal notes. (More MGM Grand stories.)