Las Vegas sees rebound of visitors since shooting
Two casinos and resorts say bookings for groups’ meetings have been strong.
Las Vegas’ convention and meeting business seems to be rebounding following a mass shooting in the city Oct. 1, according to operators of two of the city’s biggest casinos and resorts.
The city is one of the nation’s most popular spots to hold conventions, trade shows and business meetings, and such gatherings are an important source of revenue for hotels, restaurants and other travel-related operations.
The city hosted nearly 43 million visitors last year, with 6.3 million of those attending conventions. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has yet to release visitation numbers for October.
In earnings reports over the last few weeks, executives from MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts say booking trends for groups remain strong in the wake of the shooting, which left 58 people dead and more than 500 wounded. The gunman had holed up on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.
“We are pretty much back to normal [on] booking trends here at Wynn for the end of this year through next year,” Maurice Wooden, president of Wynn Las Vegas, told analysts during a conference call to discuss third-quarter earnings.
Steve Wynn, chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts, added, “If you’re going to ask what effect did the tragedy at Mandalay have on us, none that we can measure.”
Last week, executives at MGM Resorts echoed Wynn’s assessment. MGM owns and operates the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.
MGM Resorts Chief Executive Jim Murren said cancellations surged after the shooting, and MGM responded to the shooting by suspending its marketing campaign.
“I’m happy to say that these cancellations progressively subsided by mid-October, and our booking pace remarkably returned to normalized levels almost immediately thereafter,” he said.
Convention organizers also have promised to return to Las Vegas, he said.
“Some of the largest groups we’ve ever had, including at Mandalay, said that they were going to not only stay, but were going to book again and again and honor the destination. And so, our booking pace going into next year is extremely strong,” Murren said.
Satisfaction with rental cars rises
Travelers are happier with the car rental industry than in the past despite longer lines and headaches when picking up or dropping off a car.
That is according to the newest satisfaction survey by research firm J.D. Power, which attributed the increased satisfaction to daily rates that have dropped an average of $11 in 2017.
“Several other key quality measures — notably, wait times and problems with the pickup and return processes — have not improved over the past four years,” said Michael Taylor, the travel practice lead at J.D. Power. “But cheaper daily rental rates overcome those negatives for most renters.”
But Sharon Faulkner, executive director of the American Car Rental Assn., a trade group for the car rental industry, said her data don’t show a drop in prices. Instead, she thinks car rental companies are simply working harder to make customers happy for fear of getting tarnished on social media sites.
“The last thing I would want would be to have someone attack me through social media,” she said.
Although ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft have taken business away from the taxi industry, Faulkner said the car rental industry has been hurt more by high parking rates charged by hotels, which discourages travelers from renting a car.
The satisfaction rating for car rental users rose by 22 points to 826 on a 1,000-point scale, according to the survey of more than 11,000 travelers in North America.
This comes despite wait times to pick up cars increasing two minutes since 2013 and continued problems with picking up and returning cars, the report found.
Enterprise ranked the highest among rental car companies with a score of 851, followed by National (846), Alamo (828) and Hertz (822), the report said.