Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Unpausing Las Vegas: What might our valley look like after the shutdown lifts?

Treasure Island Tour During Shutdown

Wade Vandervort

The Strip is seen mostly empty in this view from the Treasure Island during the COVID-19 government-mandated shutdown, Thursday, April 9, 2020.

On Treasure Island’s casino floor, which has transformed from a jumble of noises and flashing lights into a place of stillness and calm, two chairs are missing from a bank of slot machines that once seated four. In the table games section of the casino, shuttered since mid-March when casinos were ordered closed amid the COVID-19 outbreak, there are just three seats for players at a blackjack table instead of the normal six.

April 15, 2020 Strip Views

A view of The Drew Las Vegas, right, formerly Fontainebleau Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip Wednesday, April 15, 2020. Launch slideshow »

A few tables have been removed, and every other slot machine will be turned off whenever TI reopens as a social distancing-friendly version of itself.

“We probably have too many of these right now,” says Jennifer Renzelman, Treasure Island’s vice president of communications, nodding at a two-seat bench at a dual-player slot machine. “Walking around a casino floor in Las Vegas, you want to see people smiling and having fun. Right now, it’s just kind of … sad.”

As at properties up and down the Las Vegas Strip, a makeshift Treasure Island crew is working to have the property ready for when Gov. Steve Sisolak lifts his shutdown order to restart business. Reopening could begin as early as May 1, but whenever it happens, it seems certain to usher in a significantly different resort era in the name of public safety.

“If we reopen and we’re not ready with the best plan possible, all the incredible work you’ve done will have been wasted, and [we] will run the risk of hurting our economy even more,” Sisolak said on April 16. “As soon as we finalize our state-specific plan to reopen, I will be right here, telling you exactly how we are going to do it.”

• • •

Some of Southern Nevada’s social distancing and sanitation precautions had been implemented even before Sisolak directed casinos to close on March 17. Those measures—hand sanitizing stations, workers wiping down machines and chairs and efforts to minimize crowds—will likely be commonplace moving forward for an unknown period of time.

Resort officials say they plan to adhere to any safety guidelines put in place by local, state and federal officials, some of which could include masks for casino dealers and using thermal cameras to check potential patrons’ temperatures. (Those confirmed above 100 degrees would not be allowed on property, since an elevated temperature is a primary indicator of COVID-19.)

In a report released April 19, Wynn CEO Matt Maddox called for an early-May reopening of the resort corridor, detailing planned safety precautions. Under the Wynn plan, players and dealers would wear gloves, staff would sanitize chips and tables hourly, and tables would be removed to promote social distancing. Additionally, limits would be placed on the number of patrons allowed into a resort at any given time.

“I have been on calls almost daily with one of the country’s leading public health and pandemic preparedness experts, as well as various leaders in our medical community representing our hospitals,” Maddox wrote, “and they agree that an incremental reopening makes sense, and that science and data must lead us out of this in a safe fashion.”

And on April 21, MGM Resorts International CEO and President Bill Hornbuckle posted a video—filmed at his home—in which he said, “We’ll also be operating differently [going forward] … everything from how often we clean to how we greet or guests could and will change. Our casino floors will look different, and our restaurants will ultimately be impacted as well. … We have to consider every aspect of our business, so we can welcome our guests safely. … I have every confidence that we are up to this challenge.”

• • •

On April 19, President Donald Trump presented the nation’s governors with “a phased and deliberate approach” to restoring normal activity in locations that have strong testing and have seen a decrease in COVID-19 cases. “You’re going to call your own shots,” Trump told the governors during the conference call, according to an audio recording obtained by The Associated Press.

The guidelines make clear that the reopening of businesses will take far longer than Trump initially envisioned, with federal officials warning that some social distancing measures could remain in place through at least the end of the year to prevent a new outbreak.

Casinos aren’t expected to all open at once, especially for resort companies with multiple properties. A group like MGM Resorts International, for example, might initially open one or two of its resorts. Some properties could open with slots but without table games.

“We’re looking forward to getting our properties open as soon as we can,” says David Strow, spokesman for Boyd Gaming, which operates a dozen casinos in the Las Vegas area. “We’re waiting on the governor’s direction on that. What it looks like, we don’t know yet, but our intent is to meet or exceed all of the social distancing and sanitation guidelines. We want to protect the health and safety of our customers and our employees.”

• • •

Las Vegans are surely eager to break free from their home quarantines and return to their daily routines—work, school, social get-togethers with family and friends. But Sisolak has made clear he’ll err on the side of caution. “Some people are more concerned with the business side of this,” he said on April 16. “The human toll is the most important to me.”

On April 21, Sisolak put an end to speculation school might resume this semester. “Due to current safety concerns and the need for ongoing social distancing, I have made the difficult decision to keep school buildings closed,” he said. “This is in the best interest of our students, educators, staff and communities.”

Jhone Ebert, Nevada’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, added, “This … encourages us to double down on our efforts to strengthen our delivery of distance education and promote equitable access to resources for all learners.”

Some religious officials had introduced social distancing (no hugs or handshakes during greetings) and sanitation protocols (wiping down seating) before the shutdown. Some of those services have been moved online during the closure and will likely continue to be broadcast in the weeks after the shutdown is lifted to accommodate elderly attendees more at risk from the virus.

As for community sports, Little League International has suspended activities through at least May 11, and other recreational leagues have notified participants of the possibility of concluding play with a weeklong tournament, potentially sometime in June.

Mark Pandori, director of the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory, says testing will be increasingly important as COVID-19 cases decline, to determine how much risk remains and to gather additional data. “This is about gathering intelligence,” he says. “This is about finding out where the enemy is.”

Of course, some safety protocols have become commonplace across our Valley, from reduced capacities and spaced-out lines at grocery stores to fast-food bags being passed to customers on trays in order to limit contact. Those are likely to stay in place when the business shutdown ends, but beyond that, it’s unclear what else might change from the world we knew before.

But locals’ lives are also impacted heavily by what happens on the tourist corridor, whether or not they work or spend much time there. It’s the engine that drives this Valley, and for that to resume, tourists need to begin coming back to town.

• • •

According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, 23% of Southern Nevada’s 2018 guests traveled here from California. And when the lid gets lifted on the statewide closure, it’s logical to assume they’ll be among the first to return.

“The locals market and the drive markets will be the first to come back,” LVCVA CEO Steve Hill said during an April 14 board meeting. “From a marketing standpoint, we’ll focus on the areas that offer the most potential [visitors] early on.”

Hill also warned, however, that Las Vegas should expect a “slow start and a gradual recovery throughout the year” because of the significant challenge that will be posed by physically getting visitors here.

“Even in that drive market, different markets … have the opportunity to come back before others,” Hill said. “We will both test those individual markets within driving distance of Las Vegas, as well as monitor the behaviors from those markets. We’ll then look at what we call city pairs, which is the ability to connect by flight to different cities.”

The survey of 2018 visitors showed 48% of Las Vegas’ tourists arrived by air and 20% came from foreign countries. “The international markets will likely take the longest to recover,” Hill said.

Since the start of April, U.S. air travel has been reduced to just 4.7% of what it was during the same period in 2019, the Transportation Security Administration reports. United Airlines recently cut its May flight schedule by 90% because of the pandemic and expects similar reductions in June, Reuters reported. American Airlines CEO Doug Parker recently announced that his company trimmed its schedule by 80% in May. And Summerlin-headquartered Allegiant is anticipating an 80% to 90% reduction in flight capacity for April and May, according to company spokeswoman Hilarie Grey.

McCarran International Airport has also been hit hard. With passenger volume so low, the airport has closed two of its concourses, shuttered a parking lot and consolidated some security checkpoints.

“I don’t know that the airport would necessarily be the first place you should look for things getting better,” McCarran spokeswoman Christine Crews says. “I think there are other things that have to happen in our community first.”

Those could include some changes to the Strip’s modern economic model, says Robert Lang, executive director of the Brookings Institution’s Mountain West research arm at UNLV. “One of the first stimulus measures will be, these companies will have to loosen up the cost structure,” Lang says. “To get the hotels full again, we’ll start to waive resorts fees and have it where nobody’s paying for parking. And we’ll have $1.99 steak and eggs again.”

• • •

During Nevada’s COVID-19 closures, a record 300,000 Nevadans have filed for unemployment benefits, and the state has been losing an estimated $2.2 million daily in gaming-tax revenue. For the foreseeable future, fewer resort workers will have jobs, and many of those called back to work in the tip-driven industry could see a significant decrease in pay.

Completion of two of the highest-profile construction projects in town—the Madison Square Garden Co. Sphere and Resorts World Las Vegas—will be delayed because of the virus (though Allegiant Stadium, soon-to-be-home to the Raiders, was still on schedule at press time). Some meetings and trade shows remain on the books for later in 2020, though Hill acknowledged the LVCVA isn’t expecting them all to take place here. He said the LVCVA could lose out on as much as $60 million from canceled events during the 2021 fiscal year, which had been projected as the city’s best year ever for convention attendance.

“While we are optimistic about the future of Las Vegas, we know the industry is going to remain closed for some period of time, and fiscal year 2021 is going to be difficult for the [tourism] industry,” Hill said. “We’re still excited, and we’re going to continue to build the next era of Las Vegas. There’s still nowhere like Las Vegas—it’s the only place where everything our customers and guests are missing can be found in one place.”

Peter Guzman, CEO of the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, echoes Hill’s long-term optimism.

“I do believe that, once again, Las Vegas will be on top,” Guzman says. “We’ll do some rebranding of Las Vegas. When we get past the science and the medical component, and when it’s safe to open, I think Las Vegas is going to rock it. People who will go back to work, when they have some extra income, they’re going to want to come to Las Vegas. They’ll want to get over that funk and we’re going to have things going on. We’re going to come back quicker than people think.”

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.