Inbound, outbound travel hurt

Friday, Nov. 2, 2001 | 10:38 a.m.

Signs in Japanese are common at the Gold Key Shops in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip, one of the retail stops for hundreds of Asian visitors to Las Vegas.

But it's a sign in English that explains the damage wrought by terrorists: "DFS Galleria Las Vegas Shop was closed on 10/10/2001."

On Tuesday, workers were hauling merchandise out of DFS Galleria, a duty-free store that sold home furnishings, cosmetics and souvenirs at discounted costs to a tourist clientele.

The mall, tucked into a lot just north of the Desert Inn hotel-casino site, is anchored by the DFS Galleria, an Asian restaurant and a fast-food outlet. Workers at the site said the place has been quiet since tourism -- especially among Asian visitors -- fell off dramatically after the attacks on the East Coast.

A manager of the DFS Galleria could not be reached for comment, but Vida Lin, vice president of the Asian Chamber of Commerce, said retailers catering to Asian visitors are taking the biggest hit from the tourism downturn.

The most visible indicator of hard times in Asia was last week's decision by Japan Airlines to suspend nonstop flights between Tokyo and Las Vegas through the end of January.

International and charter travel was down 40 percent at McCarran International Airport and JAL traffic between Tokyo and Las Vegas was off 34 percent from September 2000 to last month.

Local hotel-casinos have seen high-end play from Asian gamblers fall and companies that customarily market to Asian guests have sought to replace them with domestic visitors coaxed to travel with discounted room rates.

Another segment heavily dependent on Japanese tourists, the Grand Canyon air tour industry, also is hurting, Lin said.

"It's really grim," said Norm Freeman, chief executive officer of Scenic Airlines, the largest Grand Canyon tour operator in Southern Nevada. "We're down by 60 percent (over last year) and we're still falling."

"And that's what gets me up at 3 in the morning worrying, that I can't look my employees in the eye and tell them they'll have jobs the next day," Freeman said.

Freeman said the biggest frustration he's facing is that government officials aren't doing enough to tell the Japanese public that media reports on terrorism in the United States have been exaggerated.

He said he has been in contact with the office of Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., to convince her to go to Tokyo to speak to ambassadors about disseminating information about American tourism. But he said the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority isn't supporting the plan.

Rob Powers, a spokesman for the LVCVA, said the agency plans to have one-on-one meetings with journalists at the Japan Association of Travel Agents show in Japan Nov. 28 through Dec. 1. He said the LVCVA believes that would be more effective than for Berkley to be asked to address a press conference.

But Freeman thinks it's time for the city to be more aggressive.

"Everybody has an opinion about how scary it is to travel in the United States," Freeman said. "We've got to tell them that life has to go on and that it's OK to resume traveling with care."

Lin said while DFS Galleria and Scenic are the two biggest examples of local companies that have taken a big hit from the drop in Japanese tourists, she warned that other companies aren't in the clear yet.

"Business is off for the Japanese Travel Bureau International and there probably are other companies that are hoping things turn around by January," she said. "But I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more had to close in January if things haven't changed."

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