Delta Variant Rise Sees US Cities Shun Las Vegas as Macau Worries Break Out
Celebrity-driven Wahlburgers makes its Southern California gambling enterprise debut at Morongo.
July 26, 2021
How Are Online Slots Designed? A Look Behind its Creation
July 29, 2021
COVID-19 summer season spike in the United States and China
As the US and China go into the hottest months of the year, a surge in the Delta variant of COVID-19 spells problem, or a minimum of unpredictability, for the gaming hubs of Las Vegas and Macau.
Health officials in Chicago and Hawaii recently joined equivalents in LA County in California in alerting locals versus traveling to Las Vegas. Hawaii’s Kaua’i District Health Office told homeowners through Facebook that Sin City “poses significant threats”:
Kaua’i authorities cited Vegas’s no-mask liberties and popular activities such as gambling being housed indoors and, for that reason, liable to crowding as “an established for the spread of COVID-19.”
Vax drive in Macau gambling hotspot
In China’s Unique Administration Region (SAR) of Macau, health authorities in the autonomous region are famous for their betting hub caution of another surge in COVID-19 cases.
Wynn Macau welcomed Macau Health Bureau medical staff to host a vaccination site at its Grand Theater Ballroom at Wynn Palace between July 19 and July 22. In a July 23 news release following the vax drive, Wynn Macau stated:
Over 50% of Wynn team members have been immunized.”
Despite COVID-19 cases mushrooming in mainland China, analysts as Bernstein Research study– contrary to Macau’s health authorities stance– said the probability of a break out in Macau and triggering a considerable effect on travel or forces closures is low.
Sin City’s fightback method is vaccinations.
Cities throughout the US have singled out Las Vegas as a destination to prevent in the middle of the spike in COVID-19 Delta cases. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCA) is fighting back by embracing a technique of dealing with health authorities to establish vaccination centers at casinos.
Instead of toss its marketing budget at countering what health departments in California, Chicago, and Hawaii are saying about traveling to Vegas, the LVCA keeps its messaging local. Its call to action is along the lines of telling locals to get immunized for both health reasons and the sake of Sin City’s tourist economy.
The advertising agency entrusted with positioning Sin City as the “premier destination for international travel” is Vegas-based R&R Partners. It was required to Twitter earlier this month after the LVCA granted it a multimillion-dollar “advertising agency of record” agreement:
Fast-forward to an Associated Press report that Nevada tape-recorded over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases on July 23. This marks the very first time the state has crossed the one-grand mark in over five months, providing a new reality that any marketing efforts must consider.
Partner and CEO of R&R Billy Vassiliadis acknowledged the difficulty, stating: “We have invested more time in the last 18 months putting up and removing marketing as we have been marketing, based upon rises, numbers, advisories, capacity limits, masking limitations, and airline company capability concerns.”
Terrible blow for recuperating Vegas?
For other US cities to single out Las Vegas at a time when it’s bouncing back from COVID-19 seems especially harsh, especially after it published a record-breaking $1.23 bn video gaming win for May 2021.
Meetings and conventions are presenting once again. National Football League (NFL) franchise, the Las Vegas Raiders, and the National Hockey League (NHL) are Vegas Golden Knights anticipate packed arenas when their seasons start in September and October, respectively.
Another true blessing or curse for Vegas’s tourist and casino industry is that McCarran International Airport opened seven of its 14 E gates in terminal 3 over the weekend to cater to the increase of guests.
Vassiliadis believes that visitors to Las Vegas who haven’t been immunized are “probably the ones that have been coming here all along.” Despite acknowledging that such visitors might not stop coming to Sin City despite cautions, he searches the bright side.
” We know that we’re doing everything we can to get people here vaccinated, and now employees are going to be masked,” Vassiliadis stated. He added that some “residential or commercial properties have 90 percent vaccination rates among workers.”
