(With apologies to Kevin Costner and anyone else in “Field of Dreams”)

Las Vegas is going to be one toddlin’ town for the next few years if you happen to be a building contractor, a painter or a carpenter.

Sin City has been on, and is planning to accelerate, a building jag over the past few years and if everything gets built the way some of the big hotel and casino companies think it will, they are going to need a lot of people to come to make it pay off.

At the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit on Tuesday, Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Lerner said the amount of building on the overall Vegas planner is astounding, and would add more than 40,000 hotel rooms by 2012.

If all those rooms get built — and we’re not talking $69.99-a-night rooms with $10 in chips and a free buffet – many of them are going to be the kind of high-end rooms in the high-end hotels. This means that a lot more of us are going to have to travel there if they hope to make their money back.

But with funds tightening up and some projects in a little bit of doubt, that number of projected new rooms might be coming down, he said.

The Travel and Leisure Summit continues through Wednesday in Reuters Los Angeles offices.

The Presidential election is much on the minds of many in the media, as the guessing games continue about who the ultimate competitors will be for the big job.

The results of the 2008 election will leave many direct winners and losers in its wake — military spending being a big one of them. But, Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of online travel company Expedia Inc, said at the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit in Los Angeles on Tuesday that the travel industry will also see an effect following the election.

Khosrowshahi said at the summit that a change in the administration from President George W. Bush to whomever succeeds him will likely help attract visitors to the U.S. from other countries.

The view of the United States from some countries — especially some in Europe — has suffered during Bush’s administration and Khosrowshahi sees that turning around with a new team in Washington.

Khosrowshahi was one of the featured guests on the second day of the Reuters summit, which continues through Wednesday in Los Angeles.

That crunching sound you hear? It might be coming from the credit markets.

Dan D'Arrigo, chief financial officer of MGM Mirage, said at the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit on Monday that he thought the concerns about the accessibility of capital was a real worry and that it might have an effect on projects either on the drawing board or even those that are underway.

D'Arrigo, one of the featured guests at this year's summit, warned to be on the lookout for companies that need to access the capital markets until this crisis gets resolved.

The Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit continues through Thursday at our Los Angeles offices.

Shufflemaster has had a rough couple of years.

After the company's shares hit a high of $47.50 in May 2006, they have more or less steadily slipped lower and were trading on Monday afternoon at about $9.00.

The casino game maker, battling a slumping share price, said it would entertain a buyout offer at the right price, its chief operating officer said on Monday.

"I'm not sure that I would tell you that I'm committed to remaining public, remaining independent, or committed to going private or committed to being acquired," Paul Meyer told the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit in Los Angeles. "At the end of the day it all comes down to a number."

Meyer said he believes the company could deserve a valuation of 25 times earnings, compared with a current ratio of around 20.

Investors took notice and the shares jumped 3 percent to $9.24.

The Travel and Leisure Summit runs through Thursday in Reuters Los Angeles offices and brings together executives from the hotel, casino and online travel industries with Reuters reporters and editors.