Top tourism stories of 2010 to include big changes

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, Jan. 8, 2010 | 3 a.m.

At last, we’ve pushed dreadful 2009 out the door, and we can look forward to new and, hopefully, better times ahead.

What will be the top tourism stories of 2010? Although my crystal ball has never been foolproof, a few developments on the horizon should make the new year newsworthy for Las Vegans affected by our city’s most important industry.

My projected top 10 tourism stories for the year:

Airline security — what’s next? The Christmas Day near-bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight over Michigan hammered home the reality that we are still at risk from terrorists.

At the same time, the flying public is growing weary of airport hassles and delays while the bad guys came oh so close to causing another aviation disaster in American airspace.

How will the Homeland Security Department respond? Will there be more aggravating policies? Will there be more preflight searches? Will they be more intrusive? How will the flying public react?

The initial response to the near-calamity on the Northwest flight was to restrict passengers from accessing carry-on luggage and keep hands in view of the flight crew for the last hour of some international flights. But, as it has been in the past, the new policy was not uniformly enforced, leading to more confusion and frustration.

Another new directive left the policy to the captain’s discretion, which could lead to even more confusion and frustration.

One prominent newspaper called on airlines to incentivize checking luggage to discourage the abundance of carry-on bags. That’s a tough way to go, considering that consumers already pay millions of dollars for baggagge fees.

And that still wouldn’t solve the problem that nearly led to disaster on the Northwest flight. If passengers can’t move around or access carry-on bags in the last hour of a flight, what’s to stop a terrorist from doing his evil deed with 61 minutes left in the flight?

Other media have called for airline screeners to profile passengers and single out those with known radical views and religious beliefs to keep them off planes.

There are no easy solutions, but you can bet that 2010 will be a year when more restrictions are put in place to thwart terrorists and more than likely, the public won’t like them.

United No. 2 — for now. With US Airways gradually withdrawing flights from the Las Vegas market, the Phoenix-based carrier that at one time was the busiest operator at McCarran International Airport when it was America West Airlines won’t be as significant a player here.

By February, US Airways will have 34 daily flights to and from McCarran, mostly to hub airports in Phoenix, Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C.

Assuming that United Airlines maintains its current schedule, the Chicago-based legacy carrier is in line to become the second-busiest operator in Las Vegas.

United has had 39 flights a day, a limit an executive once told me was a result of increased benefits its union workers would receive if the number ever climbed above that level.

But the combination of Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines in an already-approved merger could enable it to leapfrog United. McCarran hasn’t yet merged the two airlines’ statistics in its records as some of the merger details have yet to be completed. But that should be finished this year.

Meanwhile, waiting in the wings is fast-moving Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, which is poised to vault into the top five at McCarran with its steady growth and the recent acquisition of planes from Scandinavia. How long it will take Allegiant to climb to the top five will depend on growth strategies of other carriers such as Virgin America, JetBlue and even Canada’s WestJet.

Harrah’s in Macau? Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and MGM Mirage are established players in the Chinese gaming enclave of Macau. But Harrah’s Entertainment, Las Vegas’ other big casino operator, is itching to get its foot in the door of one of the world’s most lucrative gaming markets.

Harrah’s officials turned a few heads in 2007 when the company acquired a golf course just off the Cotai Strip where Las Vegas Sands is gearing to continue its expansion of what amounts to an Asian version of the Las Vegas Strip.

How would Harrah’s get its foot in the door? That’s a question no one has an answer to, since the Chinese government has limited the number of concessions and subconcessions licensed for gaming there.

Some theorize Harrah’s will attempt to partner with an existing company while some look for a long-shot possibility that a new concession could be granted if it means Macau getting the well-known Caesars brand.

“There’s nothing immediately active that could lead us there,” Harrah’s CEO Gary Loveman recently told Bloomberg. “We’ve made it very clear we would like to see the Caesars Palace brand in Macau. We certainly recognize there are six licensees, and somehow or other it has to fit through that lens.”

Whatever the outcome, it should be interesting to watch.

I wouldn’t expect MGM Mirage to remove its presence in Macau over the controversy New Jersey gaming regulators have with the company’s relationship with Pansy Ho, a daughter of gambling kingpin Stanley Ho, who those regulators think has ties to the Chinese mob.

More likely, MGM Mirage would bid farewell to New Jersey than Macau if it were forced to make a decision.

Singapore gaming. Southeast Asia’s newest gaming market starts up when two resorts open in the next couple of months in Singapore.

Las Vegas Sands is one of the players in Singapore with an iconic three-tower resort in the Marina District, while Malaysia-based rival Genting Group is expected to open this month on nearby Sentosa Island.

Las Vegas Sands will employ the same strategy it has successfully used in Las Vegas and is trying to duplicate in Macau — building a state-of-the-art convention facility and surrounding it with classy suites, restaurants, entertainment and, of course, a casino.

The Singapore government is excited to emerge as the newest player in gaming and once again, Las Vegas is in the center of it.

In addition to the Sands property, UNLV has opened a campus in Singapore to deliver hotel management graduates to the city-nation’s newest industry.

Southwest’s new partner. If you haven’t yet heard about WestJet, the Canadian discount carrier that has a growing presence at McCarran, get ready to hear more.

Southwest Airlines, the busiest carrier at McCarran, has been working on a code-share agreement with WestJet, and Las Vegas is a likely candidate to be a key city for the partnership.

The WestJet partnership won’t mean much for Las Vegas travelers since both carriers already have flights here. But it will mean plenty for those airlines’ customers because Las Vegas could be a transit point for passengers from Calgary, Alberta, flying to Albuquerque, for example.

What could really sweeten the deal for local resorts is if the airlines agree to a policy that was instituted by long-gone National Airlines, the Las Vegas-based airline that operated from 1999 to 2002. National allowed passengers to make a free stopover in Las Vegas on its cross-country flights.

In my conversations with executives from both Southwest and WestJet, some interest was shown for such a policy. That doesn’t mean they would do it, but at least it’s something they could be talking about and it would be a great boost to Las Vegas resorts and something special for those Calgary residents flying to Albuquerque.

CityCenter, the aftermath. Another story that has been discussed for months in 2009 was the effect CityCenter would have on the Las Vegas market.

Will the new resort grow the tourism base as past resort openings have and as MGM Mirage expects? Or, will existing customers simply flock to CityCenter and leave other properties scrambling for new customers?

Most of the resort is open and at full strength. The critics and cynics will be watching the visitor counts, occupancy rates and gaming revenue statistics with their I-told-you-so’s in hand.

When I’ve been asked to offer an opinion on what would happen, I’ve responded that it would be a combination of both scenarios. Yes, CityCenter will grow the market, but it’s going to take longer than a year for the numbers to rise above prerecession levels.

And yes, some marginal properties will suffer as tourists migrate to some of the better marketed, fresher destinations.

New Las Vegas resorts. While 2010 has been pegged as a year when we wouldn’t see any new resorts open, that may not be the case.

It shouldn’t take long for the Bankruptcy Court to sort out who will be the new owner of the 3,815-room Fontainebleau and you can bet that whoever that is won’t let the property sit dormant. Carl Icahn reportedly has the inside track in the bankruptcy sale, but Pennsylvania-based Penn National Gaming is still sniffing around for an opportunity to enter the Las Vegas casino market.

Also planned for 2010 is the opening of the 2,998-room Cosmopolitan, currently owned by Deutsche Bank.

Although there has been little indication that the market would improve enough for more capacity to come on line, Harrah’s has its 665-room Octavius Tower at Caesars Palace waiting in the wings and the 400-room Harmon Hotel at CityCenter is expected to be ready this year.

Other question marks remain for Boyd Gaming’s stalled Echelon project and the outcome of the disposition of the Station Casinos bankruptcy case and whether the company would be forced to dispose of some properties. Boyd is standing by for the opportunity to buy all or some of the properties, but Station doesn’t want to lose any of its empire.

McCarran changes. The good news about McCarran International’s Terminal 3 project is that it won’t be done in 2010. What’s good about that is that Las Vegas doesn’t need the capacity — yet. But it is one of the major building projects in Southern Nevada that will continue this year, some solace for the construction industry, which saw its main source of jobs, CityCenter, go away.

When completed, Terminal 3, about 40 percent finished, will provide 14 new gates, most designed to accommodate international flights or long-range jets.

Even though many Las Vegans don’t have a need for international travel, they’re going to want to get to know about Terminal 3 because it will become an alternative means to get to the D gates from where legacy carriers United, Delta and American, as well as Alaska, JetBlue and Allegiant fly.

We’ll hear more about the details of Terminal 3 next year, but the media will monitor progress on this important local infrastructure.

More immediate at McCarran will be new parking procedures. It could be as soon as next week that McCarran officials unveil the details of their new parking revenue control system for short-term parking.

The new system will do away with the parking meters and bring the return of tickets and payment before leaving the airport. The system is similar to the one in place at Terminal 2 and is automated.

The reason for the new system: the need for additional revenue. Too many people were taking advantage of the parking meter system and the airport lost parking revenue. While more inconvenient to the public, the system will increase revenue. Airport officials wouldn’t say how much, but are expected to when the details are unveiled.

High-speed trains. We’ve talked about them for a long time and if all goes according to management plans, we’ll begin seeing a track built for the Victorville-Las Vegas route by DesertXpress in 2010.

The company is expected to announce details of its construction contracts and operational management soon with track work beginning by the end of the first quarter.

DesertXpress won’t be completed in 2010, but the fact that work is expected to be under way this year will be a significant landmark for Southern Nevada tourism.

Meanwhile, the team proposing construction of a magnetic-levitation train, American Magline Group, has shown no indication of backing down on its plans despite being at least a year behind the more conventional and less-expensive high-speed rail operators.

New airliners. Although this story isn’t on many people’s radar, the arrival of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner into commercial service could become an important one for Las Vegas someday.

The 787 had its first test flights last month and the American airplane manufacturer should begin delivering some in 2010.

The 787, built with composite plastics, is lighter than most conventional airliners, meaning it will be less expensive to operate and have a greater range.

Don’t look for an airline buying a 787 to immediately place it in service for Las Vegas. But the fact is as that airliner becomes more commonplace, Las Vegas could become a more viable destination from cities overseas. Growing the international market is a key goal for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and McCarran, and as more airlines take delivery of the 787 and the similarly designed Airbus A350 jet in a few years, our city could become a more viable, reachable market.

The story continues in 2010.