Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Tourism:

LV suffers bloody nose when Wells Fargo gets black eye

Most hardworking laborers appreciate being recognized for their superior efforts on the job.

Whether you’re a steelworker or a paper-pusher, when you give 110 percent, put in hours over the weekend and do everything you can to make your company shine, you’re entitled to enjoy the fruits of your labors.

For some, it’s a reward like getting a special parking space or a plaque from the chief executive. For others, it’s a fat bonus check.

And some get to enjoy an all-expenses-paid vacation at a nice resort. Sometimes, those vacation trips are coupled with corporate business, complete with meetings that bring representatives from all over the country to one location.

Such is the case for a segment of the convention and meetings industry known as “incentive travel.”

Unfortunately, last week’s headline-grabbing Wells Fargo Bank’s Las Vegas “junket” gave our city a bloody nose at the same time it gave the bank a black eye. Now, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has the task of justifying incentive travel sales and separating it from the real controversy: whether federal bailout money was going to pay for Wells Fargo’s aborted trip to Las Vegas.

It doesn’t appear it was.

The reality is that Wells Fargo’s trip was booked well before the bank received $25 billion in October as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a bailout designed to save the financial industry by spurring lending.

Does it look bad? Yes. Was federal money going to be used for a Las Vegas junket? No.

After the Wells Fargo fallout, LVCVA President and Chief Executive Rossi Ralenkotter said destinations nationwide are teaming to send the message that the meetings industry is a key segment of tourism that provides jobs and generates revenue.

Roger Dow, president and chief executive of the U.S. Travel Association, said business-related travel creates 2.4 million jobs, $244 billion in spending and $39 billion in tax revenue at the federal, state and local levels.

Las Vegas, the nation’s premier North American destination for meetings and conventions, plays host to about 22,000 events a year, attracting 6 million visitors resulting in an economic impact to our community of $8.5 billion. It’s estimated the meetings industry directly employs more than 46,000 people and indirectly more than 75,000.

If you separate the straight business meetings from the incentive outings, only 2 percent are specifically designed to recognize and reward top company performers. Another interesting aspect of incentive outings is that they include the spectrum of the resort industry, from the swankiest Las Vegas’ hotels to the lowest end.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re a ditch-digger or a chief executive,” one convention authority official told me, “everybody likes to get recognition and Las Vegas has a property to serve every need, from the high end to the low.”

The high end, of course, is extremely lucrative.

The authority has made no secret of its efforts to get the financial and medical industries to book more corporate travel to Las Vegas, including incentive travel. It makes great sense. Executives in those fields tend to have more discretionary income and can afford the best seats for our world-class entertainment and the most expensive menu items at our top-line restaurants.

In the last two years, the authority has made great strides in attracting those corporate sectors. Sales representatives point out Las Vegas has the best meeting facilities in the world and it’s a great place for businesspeople to roll up their sleeves and talk shop during the day and entertain and have fun at night.

Unfortunately, many in the public envision those executives as suits with hundred-dollar bills falling out of their pockets plunking down bailout money from taxpayers on a roulette table.

Wells Fargo, one of nine banks to receive TARP money, canceled its four-day corporate meeting at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore for its home-lending division as well as a 40-person meeting of the bank’s insurance division scheduled later this month at Mandalay Bay.

Although these small corporate meetings don’t carry the weight of a CES or a MAGIC convention in terms of economic impact, they’re still important corporate clients.

So what can Las Vegans do about it? When you get into a conversation about corporate greed and how bad these Las Vegas junkets are, offer the reminder that thousands of jobs depend on tourism and the corporate side is nearly as important as the leisure side.

Remind them that face-to-face meetings spur business and have the highest return on investment of all sales and marketing tools used in business.

And remind the critics that in addition to having the best entertainment and restaurants in the country, Las Vegas also has the best meeting and convention facilities in the world.

Our business depends on it.

Airport tram delays

The automated trams that shuttle millions of passengers between McCarran International Airport’s main terminal and the D gates are being upgraded. Although the result will be a plus for the airport and its passengers, the pain will be in the downtime that will occur.

It’s like the daily traffic jams we get on Interstate 15 now as the Nevada Transportation Department works on bypass lanes along the resort corridor and the complete overhaul of the freeway north of the Spaghetti Bowl.

For now, it’s painful. But the result will be worth it.

Beginning last week, one of the D gate trams that make the more than half-mile run to and fro, was shut down, placing the entire passenger load on one train. Randall Walker, Clark County’s aviation director, said the construction schedule was developed to assure that dual-tram operations would be in place during one of the city’s busiest periods: race weekend, Feb. 27 through March 1.

During the D gates’ peak periods — normally 5-9 a.m. Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays and Mondays — McCarran officials may direct some passengers to a shuttle bus to take them to the concourse if the tram line gets too backed up. Employee access to the tram is being limited to improve passenger accessibility.

What all this means to travelers is that if you have a flight that departs from the D gates, be sure to factor in some extra time, especially if you’re flying during peak-use periods. McCarran is recommending allotting an extra 30 minutes.

Fortunately, passengers on McCarran’s two busiest carriers — Southwest Airlines and US Airways — won’t be affected because their flights go out of the A, B and C gates. But if you fly United, American, Delta, Continental, Allegiant, Northwest, JetBlue, Virgin America, Alaska, AirTran, Frontier, Horizon Air, Spirit, Sun Country or SkyWest, you may be affected.

The pain is expected to last through midspring.

Walker said the shuttle system has logged more than 1 million miles. Bombardier Transportation, a division of Montreal-based Bombardier Inc., was awarded a $43 million contract by the Clark County Commission in 2006 to refurbish both the C and D trams and build a new subterranean tram that will link the D gates with Terminal 3, which is under construction.

Transcontinental fare wars

JetBlue and Virgin America, two airlines that have a presence at McCarran, are engaged in an extraordinary transcontinental fare war.

Last week, both airlines announced $105 one-way fares to Boston and New York from Los Angeles. JetBlue announced the fare in connection with its scheduled June 17 debut at Los Angeles International Airport. Most of JetBlue’s Southern California flying has been through suburban L.A. airports such as Long Beach and Burbank.

Once JetBlue announced the fares, Virgin America, American and United joined the competition.

For a midweek July flight between Los Angeles International and New York’s John F. Kennedy International, passengers could buy a round-trip ticket for $209 ($238 with taxes).

By comparison, a round trip between Las Vegas and Kennedy Airport on the same day could be had on JetBlue, Virgin America, American, US Airways and Continental for $318 ($346 with taxes).

The cheapest fare to New York from Las Vegas was a one-stop trip on American, $287 round trip ($337 with taxes), according to listings on orbitz.com.

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