Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority CEO on reopening in wake of COVID-19

Many big casinos on the Las Vegas strip are reopening today, after the city has suffered a 33.5% unemployment rate. Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi discuss with Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Steve, good to see you. What does this reopening of Vegas mean to your business, but to the city more broadly?

STEVE HILL: Good morning, Brian. You know, it's a great day here. We are excited to welcome our visitors back, welcome people back to their jobs, which is a critically important part of this as well.

And it is a great first step. In fact, it has-- it's a bigger first step than we thought we were going to be able to take. There's been a lot of demand to come back to Las Vegas. We've missed our visitors. They've missed us, and it shows.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: What are you hearing in terms of tourist interest? Are people planning trips there? Are they approaching those trips differently? What's your feeling about how folks are going to feel about walking back into a casino, and then staying in those hotels?

STEVE HILL: Yeah, I don't think it's unexpected there we're basically seeing our visitors in three groups. There's a group who are coming back today who can't wait to get back and are excited to do it and are willing to do it in the face of the economic crisis, the health concerns. They trust us. They have peace of mind that Vegas is a safe place to be.

The next group is ready to come back, but a little bit more in a wait-and-see mode. And we need to do this right over the next month, six weeks, to show that group that it is both safe and a great time to come back to Las Vegas. And then we have others who are just really not considering returning for three to six months, somewhere in that range.

So we know that it's going to be a ramp from where we are through the rest of this year and into the early part of 2021. But reopening has been really larger, had more demand than we would have originally thought.

BRIAN SOZZI: Steve, what does demand look like for bookings in the convention center? I know you have CES coming back in the mix here. But do you see businesses renting space out? Is that starting to come back?

STEVE HILL: Well, it actually at some level has just been put on hold. Interestingly, we are going into the next 12 months with the largest schedule that we have ever had. Now that will look different. I mean, it's somewhat questionable as we enter into August and early September whether some of these shows can actually happen.

But our customers also want to come back here at the convention center. They'll just have to come back in a somewhat different way. Maybe bigger spacing between displays, larger aisle sizes with the social distancing will have to be a part of large meetings. And we'll evolve through that over the next several months.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Steve, we see the civil unrest in our country right now. Are you-- over the killing of George Floyd. Are you concerned that might impact demand from tourists on top of the pandemic? Are you hearing that they don't want to travel right now or be in places like Vegas, where many people can come together at once because of those protests?

STEVE HILL: Well, it was a concern. And what we've seen from a booking pattern and a cancellation pattern, that really has not manifested itself. The city, the industry not only respects the right of the protesters to protest peacefully, we support that. And our police department here has worked with the protesters to make sure that we offer them that opportunity to do so, and do it in a way that allows us to bring our guests back to Las Vegas as well.

BRIAN SOZZI: Steve, speaking of the police, what does the police presence-- what will that look like when people start coming back?

STEVE HILL: Well, they're certainly visible around the protest areas. They'll be visible anyway. But it will be in response to what's happening on the ground.

We have a lot of experience with really where it's 300,000 people on the Strip, and for New Year's Eve, for an example. And there is a very visible police presence there. But there's also a sense of customer service around that. So while that presence is there, they understand how-- the correct way to deal with our guests, to deal with whatever is going on the Strip.

BRIAN SOZZI: Steve, how different will the gambling experience look like? I've seen images online, table games spaced further apart. What do the restaurants look like? What are you seeing and hearing?

STEVE HILL: Well, for the most part, the social distancing dictates what the casino floor or a restaurant will look like. So that is either-- for example, with slot machines, every other slot machine being turned off, or potentially removed from the floor, spacing between table games, both in terms of the tables themselves as well as limiting the number of players at each of those games. So capacity between 25% and 50% of what it normally is will be kind of the standard for awhile.