Property and Equipment

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011

Property and Equipment [Abstract]

Property and Equipment

Note 6. Property and Equipment

Property and equipment as of December 31 consisted of the following:

		$,0000000			$,0000000
	2011			2010
	(in thousands)
Land	$	18,134		$	9,139
Buildings and leasehold improvements		109,077			89,945
Equipment and other		310,186			299,558
		437,397			398,642
Accumulated depreciation		(263,584	)		(249,296	)
Property and equipment, net	$	173,813		$	149,346

Included in the “Equipment and other” caption above are capitalized costs incurred in developing or obtaining internal use software. The net carrying amount of capitalized software was $14.9 million and $17.5 million as of December 31, 2011 and 2010, respectively.

Depreciation expense was $28.4 million, $27.3 million and $26.5 million for 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively. As discussed in Note 3 above, Viad recorded an impairment loss of $117,000 in 2010 related to a tour boat at the Travel & Recreation Group. Viad also recorded impairment losses of $1.7 million related to certain touring exhibit assets at the Marketing & Events Group in 2009.

During 2009, Viad commenced a plan of sale related to a non-strategic real estate asset held in the Travel & Recreation Group. This asset consisted of land, building and related improvements, which was expected to be sold within one year. Accordingly, the value of this asset was remeasured based on the estimated fair value, less cost to sell. As a result of the remeasurement, the Company recorded a loss of $2.9 million in 2009, which is included in the consolidated statements of operations under the caption “Other impairment losses.” Viad completed the sale of this asset in March 2010 for $14.3 million (net of selling costs).