A surge in the Delta variant of COVID-19 is adding to the heat for the Las Vegas, Nevada, and Macau, China gambling centers. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
COVID-19 summer peak in the US and China
As the US and China enter the hottest months of the year, a spike in the Delta variant of COVID-19 means trouble, or at least uncertainty, for the gambling hubs of Las Vegas and Macau.
Health officials in Chicago and Hawaii joined forces with colleagues in LA County, California last week to warn residents not to travel to Las Vegas. Hawaii’s Kaua’i District Health Department told residents on Facebook that Sin City “poses significant risks”:
Kaua’i authorities cited Vegas mask-free and popular activities such as gambling, which is indoor and therefore subject to overcrowding, as “a facility dedicated to the spread of COVID-19”.
Vax ride in Macau’s gambling hotspot
Meanwhile, in China’s Special Administrative Region (SAR) Macau, health officials in the autonomous region famous for its gambling center are warning of a further surge in COVID-19 cases.
Wynn Macau even went so far as to invite medical personnel from the Macau Health Bureau to host a vaccination site in the Grand Theater Ballroom at Wynn Palace between July 19 and July 22. In a July 23 press release following the Vax action, Wynn Macau said:
Over 50% of the Wynn team members were vaccinated. “
Despite the spread of COVID-19 cases in mainland China, analysts like Bernstein Research said – contrary to the position of Macau health authorities – the likelihood of an outbreak in Macau and the significant impact on travel or forced closings is slim.
Sin City’s defense strategy is vaccinations
Cities in the US have selected Las Vegas as a travel destination to avoid amid the surge in COVID-19 Delta cases. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCA) is fighting back by pursuing a strategy of working with health officials to set up vaccination centers in casinos, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Rather than sacrificing its advertising budget to counter what health officials in California, Chicago, and Hawaii say about traveling to Vegas, the LVCA keeps its news local. His call to action is to ask residents to get vaccinated for both health and tourism reasons in Sin City.
The advertising agency tasked with positioning Sin City as the “Premier Destination for Global Travel” is R&R Partners based in Vegas. It went to Twitter earlier this month after the LVCA awarded him a multimillion-dollar contract as the “Advertising Agency of Records”:
We are excited to continue our partnership with @Vegas to position Las Vegas as the premier global travel destination. Las Vegas is now entering one of its most exciting chapters. We look forward to bringing you all that Las Vegas has to offer. https://t.co/26wNKoLxkH
– R&R Partners (@rrpartners) July 8, 2021
Fast forward to an Associated Press report that Nevada recorded over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases on July 23. This is the first time the state has passed the one-grand mark in over five months, which is a new reality that requires any advertising effort to take into account.
Billy Vassiliadis, Partner and CEO of R&R, acknowledged the challenge and said: “We have spent more time building and dismantling advertisements in the last 18 months than we have advertised based on increases, numbers, cues, capacity limits , Masking limits and airline capacity problems. “
Cruel Blow To Vegas Restoration?
For other US cities, it seems particularly cruel singling out Las Vegas at a time when it is recovering from COVID-19, especially after it posted a record-breaking $ 1.23 billion game win in May 2021.
Meetings and congresses are rolling out again. The Las Vegas Raiders of the National Football League (NFL) and the Vegas Golden Knights of the National Hockey League (NHL) expect stadiums to fill up when their seasons begin in September and October, respectively.
Another boon or bane for the Vegas tourism and casino industries is that McCarran International Airport opened seven of its 14 e-gates in Terminal three over the weekend to handle the influx of passengers.
Vassiliadis believes that visitors to Las Vegas who haven’t been vaccinated are “likely the ones who came here all along”. While he admits that such visitors couldn’t stop coming to Sin City despite warnings, he looks positive.
“We know we are doing everything we can to vaccinate the people here, and now the staff are being masked,” said Vassiliadis. He added that some “establishments have a 90 percent vaccination rate among their employees”.
