Rudy Maxa is host and executive producer of 91 television episodes on the world’s great destinations

I was a young Washington Post reporter when the first casino opened in the down-on-its-luck town of Atlantic City, NJ, 35 years ago.  I was stunned at the long lines that waited to get in the Resorts International Hotel Casino that first day.  And the dozens of competitors that followed were meant to usher in a renaissance that would rescue Atlantic City.
Visitors checked into the hotels with casinos, ate there, shopped there, but there wasn't much trickle down of money to the town as a whole.  Then the first casino opened in Pennsylvania in 2006, and it siphoned off gamblers who'd been going to Atlantic City for 30 years.
cruises mediterranean Yesterday the Trump Taj Mahal opened a $25 million branch of Scores, the New York City club that attracts sport stars, actors, and other big spenders.  Total nudity and lap dances are prohibited.  There are four strip clubs in town, but the Trump folks hope the safety and status of an in-property club will begin a rising tide that will lift all boats.
Rudy Maxa is host and executive producer of 91 television episodes on the world's great destinations that air on PBS stations nationwide. His television episodes also air in 121 countries in 22 different languages on Travel Channel International.
Public radio listeners will remember "The Savvy Traveler," a show Rudy hosted cruises mediterranean before he transitioned to television. Today, he hosts America's most widely syndicated radio travel show that is broadcast each weekend on 170+ news/talk stations, the Armed Forces Network, and XM Radio channel 243.
Rudy is an award-winning writer with National Geographic Traveler and a former Washington Post investigative reporter cruises mediterranean and columnist whose writing was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is also a fascinating and informative speaker on the subject of travel today and speaks extensively around the world.