Las Vegas Review Journal – Just as the recession began to grip Las Vegas in 2008, gaming executive Terry Lanni made a prediction. During an interview at his offices in the Bellagio, Lanni said a Las Vegas market recovery was not going to be like any other time tourism and gaming businesses experienced a downturn.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it took 18 to 24 months for tourists to get comfortable with domestic travel.
The recession of the 1980s took a bite out of the tour and travel trade nationwide. An aggressive marketing campaign by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, however, kept the Strip afloat.
But the newest economic downturn, Lanni said, was going to have a much firmer grip on the neck of gaming.
“A recovery is not going to be like turning on a light switch,” said Lanni, who retired later that year as chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International’s predecessor, MGM Mirage Corp.
He likened the mending process to a dimmer, which varies a light’s intensity at a measured pace.
Six years later, the Strip’s lights are getting a little brighter.
In the first four months of 2014, new nongaming attractions and developments have been unveiled. Older hotel-casinos have been renovated. Tourism numbers are on pace to break the magical threshold of 40 million annual visitors. And the Strip’s first new megaresort in nearly a decade should be under construction by summer.
In 2008, Nevada gaming revenue fell more than 9 percent. The year marked the first of three straight annual gaming revenue declines that sent state and Strip totals back to 2004 levels. Last year, gaming revenue statewide cracked $11 billion for the first time since 2008.
