A view of MGM’s Mandalay Bay and Excalibur hotel-casinos looking southbound on the Las Vegas Strip from Tropicana Avenue Friday, Jan. 3, 2020.
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020 | 4:30 p.m.
MGM Resorts International is considering closing some of its Las Vegas Strip properties during the middle of the week, company officials said today.
“We’re going through an exercise, we’re doing it now, about what do we keep open and what do we close,” MGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle said during a quarterly earnings call.
“There are certain amenities, certain towers, certain brands potentially that could face closure from mid-November — give or take — through the holiday season,” he said.
Following the call, an MGM spokesman said in an email that any closures would likely be limited to midweek operations in instead of full property closures.
Hornbuckle’s comments came after he was asked if MGM, which has 10 Strip resorts, would follow the lead of other Strip operators, like Wynn Resorts, which have limited hours at some properties because of soft demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re keeping a close eye on it as we go forward,” Hornbuckle said.
MGM officials said the company has become adept at altering staffing levels and availability of certain amenities.
In September, midweek hotel occupancy in Las Vegas was 39%, a decrease of 47% from the same month in 2019, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Weekend occupancy was 66%, off 30% from September 2019.
Citing weak customer demand, Wynn announced earlier this month that it would cut the operating schedule at Encore to four days a week, closing midweek.
For the three months that ended Sept. 30, MGM reported net revenues of $1.1 billion, down 66% from the third quarter of 2019.
The net loss attributed to the company for the quarter was $535 million — about $1.08 per diluted share.
During the third quarter of 2019, the company reported a net loss of about $37 million.
At MGM’s Strip properties, net revenues came in at $481 million for the quarter, down 68% from the third quarter of 2019.
The decline was mostly attributed to the effects from the global coronavirus pandemic.
