You Can See it from the Moon, if the Angle is Right

It's pony Las Vegas.

The tourist industry in Applewood gets its backbone from the princesses and the Elements of Harmony. Celestia and Luna signed all sorts of documents back in the day allowing their likenesses to be represented, but the Elements (the current ones) did not, so advertisements have to be careful not to be too on-the-nose with their depictions. Everyone knows who the white unicorn sipping a drink on the bar's front is supposed to be, though.

Applewood's hotels are many, and almost all of them have a theme of some sort. The most popular are The Frontier (old west, Appleloosa theme; someone who looks suspiciously like Applejack holds a lasso on its sign), Whirlwind (glacial theme, inspired by the sense of spooky mystique surrounding that town Snowdrift), Southern Lights (another snow hotel, not as specific as Whirlwind), Midnight (the first to capitalize on Princess Luna's association with dreams and the darkness), Sky Kiss (heaven and flight themed), Apogee and Perigee (both moon-themed, and owned by the same pony), Inspire (a recent addition, themed on Rarity and her association with jewels and fashion), Comet Tail (Celestia's sunlight and the incredible power and majesty she is known to command), and Shooting Star (a copycat of Comet Tail). These alone are responsible for close to forty percent of Applewood's tourism revenue.

These hotels are much more than attractive themes for ponies to gawk at. What sets them apart from smaller hotels, like The Core or Enchanted Wood, is their use of magic in the facilities. Equestrian law prevents them from employing actual enchanted machines, like self-cleaning showers or TVs that can know when to turn themselves off to conserve electricity, but they have the next best thing: unicorns whose jobs are to traverse the grounds and continually maintain enchantments on objects. For example, Inspire has a team of five unicorns who enchant its ballrooms every evening, so the floor patterns move in time with music, while Apogee has a unicorn in charge of making sure every fountain cycles water with an argentine shine.

The practice is totally unique to Applewood, as no other city gains such high revenue from simply impressing ponies; continual enchantments in more industrial practices are not cost-effective. Simple labor is much cheaper, and more plentiful. These enchanters enjoy a well-envied position of respect with businesses and safety from the boisterous tourists that flood the city, and are one of the few types of worker that is paid very well for not having to interact with the hoi polloi. The only drawback is that they have very little value outside of Applewood.

For this reason, the more wealthy, popular hotels typically end up, ironically, being much simpler in appearance than their competition. With skilled magic at the ready, the hotels put more effort into interior furnishing, making themselves available to the biggest shows, and keeping their enchanters happy. Southern Lights looks like a regular, rectangular hotel, the only thing setting it apart being its sign that magically projects out from the building's front. Not five miles away, you will find Rainfall, a hotel constantly surrounded by a fine curtain of falling water: a financially disastrous decision by its owner, who thought she would easily make back the money to keep the water pumping without unicorn help. She didn't.

Between hotels, the majority of The Bright Road's real estate goes to bars, restaurants, and shops, which are never large enough to warrant enchanters. These wind up needing to stay much more close to the ponies whose faces they use. One bar, called "Pinky's Playhouse" (note the Y, instead of IE) is famous for its array of candy and dessert-themed drinks. The emphasis on Element idolatry between hotels, and a more subtle celebration of locations and themes within them, creates a strange contrast between the tacky and the respectful in the city. Someone can stumble into their room wearing the top of Twilight's head as a hat and collapse onto a bed with sheets designed to resemble the pages of a well-known book.