Las Vegas visitation is down.

We explore what's behind the decline, plus... (Dustin Wax) Nobody cared about this history in 1973 or whatever, so nobody wanted to write that down.

So we've painstakingly reconstructed it, and a lot of that resides in our, in our collection.

So we have to keep this collection together.

-Its doors now closed, the Burlesque Hall of Fame Museum looks to repurpose its unique collection.

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

Recent data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority shows that visitor volume in May was down 6 1/2 percent when compared to the year before.

In its report, the LVCVA pointed to, quote, headwinds of ongoing economic uncertainty.

But there are others who argue there's more at play here.

And joining us to discuss that are Howard Stutz, Gaming, Tourism, and Sports Business Reporter at The Nevada Independent; and Christopher Peterson, Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

Gentlemen, welcome.

-Thank you.

-Howard, a couple of questions for you first.

That 6.5% decline that I mentioned in visitor volume, how big of a deal is that?

(Howard Stutz) They're dealing with it.

I mean, you look around the Strip and every day there's a hotel saying, No resort fees.

You know, Resorts World went free parking.

They're, they're doing different things to try to get visitors here, to entice more visitation.

But we're going to see the gaming, the tourism and gaming numbers next week from LVCVA and the Gaming Control Board--and the airport numbers.

-For June.

-For June.

And they're going to be down.

I mean, it's probably going to be down, it looks like, at least for the rest of the summer.

And let's remember, Amber, summer is always the slowest visitation.

-Right.

-Period.

-Some summers are different than previous summers.

-But we've had just a hyper visitation over the last few years because of post-pandemic and things that went on.

So the hopeful is, is that the-- the hope is that this is going to bounce back in the fall, is what the resorts are hoping for.

-And then that economic uncertainty that the LVCVA points to, how much of a role do industry leaders think that's playing in visitation?

-Well, it's hurting what-- spending.

That's what you know, if people are paying more for health care or more for other needs because of, you know, what came out of, out of Congress in the last, you know, in the last month, yeah, that's going to hurt.

That's going to hurt what people spend.

So that's why you're-- that's why they're doing all these different incentives.

Now, things could pick up again in the fall.

Let's face it, you've got, you've got a lot more events, a lot of big conventions coming in.

The Convention Authority and MGM, Caesars have talked about big convention calendars throughout the end of the year.

The Raiders will be back.

-So expectations are... -It will pick up.

-All right.

Chris, for our viewers who are wondering, what is someone from the ACLU of Nevada doing on a show about tourism, I'm going to read the title of a column that you wrote for the Nevada Current.

It is "Undermining civil rights is bad for tourism."

What prompted you to write that?

(Christopher Peterson) Well, I think there was a combination of things.

Obviously, we saw the numbers that Howard was just talking about, but we were also aware of how the current federal administration's policies when it comes to international travel has impacted our industry here that's based on international travel.

That comes up in a couple different ways.

Obviously, we see a general aggression towards the idea of, okay, if you violate our immigration laws coming here.

We think of that as people who've already been here.

But also it impacts international travelers coming in.

If we're putting people in jail for minor violations of visa overstays and that's making the news and it's scaring people away, people aren't going to come here, right?

-Can you give us an example of that having happened?

-Yes.

So, I mean, there's been news recently of at least one traveler that came in from Germany to visit someone that they knew that was living here in Las Vegas.

They went briefly down to Mexico.

When they tried to come back across the border, he was detained at the border, at the San Diego border, and was held in custody for an extended period of time.

When, typically, in previous years, our government would have simply said, Look, you can't come in.

Your visa doesn't work right now.

We've also seen instances where, you know, for example, just two weeks ago, news stories about a Canadian dying in ICE custody.

And obviously, if you're a Canadian who's thinking about coming to the United States, you may not dig further than the headline, decide, You know what?

Maybe I'll just go to Toronto for my my vacation this year.

-What is the reasoning behind detaining people versus sending them back and just not allowing them to enter the country?

Do you know?

-Well, I think I can speculate that our federal government wants to look tough on any sort of immigration violations.

That's part of what this administration came into the White House with, but they haven't really talked about the impact that has on communities like ours that depend on international travelers.

-And you are right, President Donald Trump ran on a platform of securing the borders.

And I think some might argue this is what's going to happen as a result of that.

-Correct.

And there's obviously other policies as well, such as how the administration's changed how we handle our passports, that are frightening travelers abroad.

Specifically, the administration pushed an executive order very early on requiring that Americans getting passports renewed or seeking new passports have a gender marker that conformed with their, quote/unquote, sex and also stopped issuing passports with an X designation.

There are other countries that have citizens that allow them to choose what their gender markers are and have X markers.

-And an X marker indicates...?

-Simply, it's stating that they don't want to have a gender designation on their passport, right?

And that's up to their citizens decision.

It's actually up to our citizens decision as well, but it signals to people from other countries that have that on their passport that we are not welcoming them here.

And there's warnings from those countries through travel advisories saying, Look, you might have complications if your passport has this designation on it.

-I think some would argue that it is put on there in order to help a government identify and make sure someone is who they say they are.

-Well, I think a key thing about allowing people to choose, especially when it comes down to having a gender marker that conforms with how people view them, what is their appearance, it has a two-fold thing.

One, it makes it easier to actually identify them if how they appear matches with the gender marker they've chosen.

But it's also a safety thing.

I mean, if you're traveling to a culture that's hostile to people that don't conform with their gender norms, if your gender marker does not line up with how they think you should look, you might be in danger.

And now we're signaling to other countries we may be one of those cultures that if you come here, you might be in danger.

-And thank you for explaining that, because it plays a role in the story that you're about to see.

Hailed as the world's only museum dedicated to the history and art of Burlesque, the Burlesque Hall of Fame Museum in downtown Las Vegas closed this week.

Its executive director says museum attendance mirrored the drop in visitation that Las Vegas is seeing.

He blamed the economy for fewer ticket sales to the museum's largest fundraising event, as well as policy, a familiar foe in the art form's history.

A burlesque dancer in three different decades... (Shawna "The Black Venus") Lots of fun, lots of drama always.

-Shauna "The Black Venus" refused to let racism deter her from dancing.

-When I first started, there were a lot of places I could not work because of my color.

The late 70s, it wasn't that great because I couldn't work where I wanted to work.

I couldn't work here.

I couldn't work in Vegas.

-Now considered a legend in a burlesque community that she says today's public is somewhat more accepting of... -We're still looked at as sex workers, for one thing, but, in general, people are more open.

-She visited Vegas in June to perform at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender, a four-day fundraiser for the Burlesque Hall of Fame Museum.

-Oh, it's great.

I still, I just love, love dancing, and I'm usually goofing around.

(Penny Starr, Sr.) Instead of "stripper," I prefer "exotic."

Any woman can come out with their clothes off, but the woman that can dance around with a little bit of something on is the woman that has it.

You put that people right here.

That's the one I like.

-It's the high point of their year.

Every year we bring as many of the older performers as we can.

They love the opportunity to kind of revel in-- you know, they weren't-- I mean, they were popular, but they weren't beloved people when they were doing their careers.

They were getting arrested.

-Dustin Wax is Executive Director of the Weekender and of the now closed Burlesque Hall of Fame Museum.

-All of these are Jennie's pasties.

-An activist who fought for the rights of fellow burlesque dancers, Jennie Lee "The Bazoom Girl" founded the museum, which first opened as Exotic World in Helendale, California, in the 1980s.

-Her husband's family own this goat ranch, and she had this idea that she was going to, like, start a museum there.

-It's been at this downtown Las Vegas location since 2018.

-This is the most expensive part of what we do.

I mean, the Weekender costs a lot of money, but it makes a lot of money.

-Wax says the museum typically costs more to operate than it earns and that he's had to use money generated from the Weekender, an internationally attended conference with classes... -If you use your hands as well, you're adding more power.

-...shopping, meet and greets, and more.

But he says attendance has still not returned to pre-pandemic levels, and he doesn't think it will anytime soon, partly due to President Trump's policies on gender and Canada.

(President Trump) They've charged our farmers up to 400%-- almost 400% on certain products and certain, you know, things.

Our farmers want to send it, they have to pay 200, 300, 400%.

People don't know that.

Canada is a very tough country to deal with.

Frankly, Canada should be the 51st state, okay?

It really should, because Canada relies entirely on the United States.

We don't rely on Canada.

-I started getting emails from especially a lot of Canadians, but also from the UK, from Australia, Hey, I'm scared to come there this year.

I don't want to cross the border.

A big part of our audience is LGBTQ.

They're concerned about the kinds of stories they're hearing about the scrutiny that people are receiving at the border.

They're concerned about, What if my physical appearance doesn't match the gender expressed in my passport?

-Wax says the museum also relied on grants from nonprofits like Nevada Humanities, which are facing federal funding cuts under a Trump administration that's trying to rein in government spending.

-I'm looking at the future and thinking we could stay open and just keep going until one day there's $0.00 in the bank account, or we can be proactive and look at what is a model that keeps the collection together and keeps the Weekender happening.

-Wax says the Weekender, now in its 35th year, will continue, while the collection of about 6,000 pieces will go in storage.

-Photographs, posters, promotional material.

We have probably 200 costumes.

-Also among the museum's collection are these three urns holding the remains of three former burlesque dancers.

Why do you have urns here?

-So a lot of these performers didn't have close relations with their families.

When Jennie moved out to the goat ranch in Helendale, she's like, People can come here and live.

And one of the reasons retired elderly performers might want to go and live in a trailer in the High Desert is because they don't have a daughter or son's house they can go to or family members house they can go to for their golden years.

So we have three urns with the remains of Mitzi Sinclair, Sherri Champagne, and Rita Cortez.

-Wax says their remains will likely live in his own home, and he hopes the rest of this colorful collection can someday serve as a traveling exhibition.

At the Weekender, word of this traveled as fast as twirling tassels.

-I know in Austin, our community has already talked about, Hey, if they're going to be traveling, how can we bring them here?

-After all, this museum on the road would reflect the lives of some of Burlesque's biggest stars.

(Dee Milo) I worked nearly all of the United States and the foreign countries.

-And while burlesque legends are lamenting the museum's closing, they're thankful that the Weekender will keep bumping and grinding so they can rejoice... -The way Burlesque is, you know, portrayed now, it's just, it's great.

-...and reminisce, share their craft, and shimmy.

-I would come up against anyone, you know, because I would work that stage.

And I have one move that I make.

I call it my Fred Astaire move.

I absolutely have 'em down pat, you know?

And I can't do it anymore.

[laughter] But I do get through a good-- I do a good number.

-All right, so let's start with international tourism.

How has it been impacted under this second term of President Trump?

-Well, let's go back a bit.

International travel, back and after the pandemic, that was the last piece of the puzzle that the tourism leaders here wanted to get back.

Right now, where we're at with international travel is already, is getting below what we were last year.

And it's falling and will continue to fall.

So this is a huge piece of the puzzle of Vegas that we're losing.

-I mean-- -And when you talk to industry leaders, why do they think that's happening?

-Well, they're, they're, you know, it's obviously people don't want-- people, international travelers don't want to come to the US.

That's really what the hard part-- that's really what it boils down to, especially Canadians.

-Are gaming executives acknowledging that?

-They're not acknowledging that.

I mean, listen, in March I wrote my first piece of when Canada travel cratered, and I said it was because of the tariffs.

I got, that week after, I was getting texts, emails from Canadians, you know, got my message, got my contact information telling me it's not the travel, it's your President saying we should be the 51st state.

That's an insult.

So I wrote a follow-up piece on that.

And that's what it really boils down to.

Canadian travel, I've learned there's three major flight airlines that service here.

They're all down, and they will continue to be down.

I mean, it's just, we're gonna, we're probably just gonna have to work our way back out of it.

I don't know.

I don't have an answer on how, but that's what's gonna-- that's where we're at right now.

It's not just Canadian travel.

I think we're gonna see travel down from Mexico, and we're seeing travel looks, just internationally, all over, going down.

-Nevada's stance, how Nevada is viewed across the country and across the world in terms of how it treats LGBTQ visitors, what has that been and will that help in this situation?

-Well, I think it's part of our broader brand that this is a place where you're free to be yourself and have a good time, right?

And our state laws reflect that.

You know, for example, recently, we passed an equal rights amendment to our state constitution that protects a broad range of categories, including things like gender identity and sexual orientation.

And, you know, what the current federal administration is doing directly contradicts that.

When people are hearing news stories about, Oh, I tried to come to the United States, and they asked to look at my phone; and because they saw a text that I was critical of the President, they turned me back around and sent me back to France, why would I arrange to travel to this country, fly thousands of miles to come to Las Vegas, if I'm afraid that as soon as I get to our airport, I'm going to be sent back to where I came from?

-For that particular case, authorities say that it was because of his admitted drug use?

-Well, that's the second time this has happened.

There was another French scientist that came.

That was a gentleman from Denmark.

And as we start hearing these stories more and more, right, sometimes it's not even about the idea of what actually happened; it's how people perceive us.

And if they perceive us as not respecting civil liberties, as not being a place where people can be themselves, as being hostile to the LGBTQ community, whether or not that's actually what's happening on the ground, people aren't going to risk it.

They're going to stay home, or they're going to go someplace else.

-Pride Month is June.

I mean, they put out a huge press release with, you know, about five pages long, with all these different events that happened during the month of June.

Now we'll see the June numbers in in a week or so from the LVCVA.

We'll see if that was-- if people came in for that, for that month.

The LVCVA-- -Have they changed their marketing?

-They didn't change at all.

I mean, they were-- I mean, this was-- there were a lot of different events.

When you sent me the message about you're going to talk about this on the show, and I went back and looked, and it was, you know, a lot of events that went on.

So it didn't change their marketing.

The LVCVA, their job is to bring people to Vegas, American citizens and International, an international audience.

So they didn't change their message at all.

-Okay.

What were you going to say?

-I'm just saying that I think, as far as our city is concerned, if you walk down the street, we're a cross section of this country, and we reflect the diversity of this country.

And there's, you know, people may have their opinions, but I think generally on the ground, we have an attitude of live and let live.

And have people-- like, let people have a good time.

But again, if the overall view of our country is one of, We're not going to let you live your life the way you want to and we're not even going to let our own citizens do that, I mean, how do we expect people to trust us when we say come here and have a good time?

-We're built on tourism, obviously.

We saw from that bill the fees put on visas, international visas.

-Explain that.

-Yeah.

The American Gaming Association brought this up-- not the American Gaming Association, the US Travel Industry.

The head of the US Travel, Geoff Freeman, was the CEO of the American Gaming Association for a number of years.

They added these fees on nonimmigrant visa, travel visas.

There's-- and then there's also the brand USA, which is what US Travel uses to promote the US to international markets.

Their federal funds were cut by 80%.

Next year, we have the World Cup coming to the US.

Now, they're not coming to Vegas, but they'll be in LA, they'll be in San Francisco.

It's gonna be, I mean, on the West Coast.

And people are gonna-- Vegas could benefit from the World Cup from international travel.

That's a big question mark.

Then you look out, look ahead, 2028 is the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, which is going to have a big effect on Las Vegas you would think in 2028.

So that's where some of these, some of this fear is coming in with, you know, for next year.

-That nonimmigrant visa that you're talking about, I think it's several hundred dollars, right?

-It was like $250, which they didn't expect.

-That's part of the Big Beautiful Bill.

-Part of the Big Beautiful Bill.

-Yeah.

-Was the industry aware of this?

-I don't know if they were aware of it.

I mean this, you know, we didn't-- we know that excise tax on gambling winnings that was put in, no one was aware of that until it popped up.

-Do you mind explaining that?

-Yeah, that's like if you win 100-- used to be if you win $100,000 gambling and you lose 100,000 gambling, your tax is zero, because it evened out.

-Write off your losses.

-Now they're adding its-- you can only write off 90% of your losses.

So now if you broke even, you still owe $10,000.

So what their fear is now is big many-- the big money gamblers that they're not going to come here.

They're going to go somewhere else.

Fear is they'll go on the offshore market, which is illegal.

It's not taxed.

So I think they're going-- this is what Dina Titus, Representative Titus is trying to get out of, you know, trying to get that eliminated.

She's got bipartisan support for eliminating this.

But it was, it was a shock to everybody.

All of a sudden, this thing popped up and over Fourth of July weekend.

-Yeah.

Derek Stevens of the Circa, has several properties downtown, said this will really hurt Vegas.

-He was very adamant that this is-- a lot of the industries kind of stay quiet and let others do the speaking.

Derek doesn't do that.

Derek comes right out on his own, and he's right.

I mean, this is really going to hurt, you know, would hurt a lot of his big money players, and so they may not come.

-When we talk about tariffs that President Trump has enacted or wants to enact, the purpose is to bolster businesses that are based in America and reduce the country's reliance on foreign markets.

Would that model work in Las Vegas, though?

-Well-- -Could we rely here on just domestic tourism?

-Well, domestic tourism?

Probably not.

And let's look at, you know, the big money, you know-- high rollers a lot of times come from Asia, come from other countries, obviously.

You look at Formula 1.

It's a very European sport, and they come, the big money players come in for that.

And it's already, tariffs have already hurt the industry in some ways.

Wynn Resorts is slowing down an expansion of Encore.

You know, a renovation of Encore, because of the higher costs that went into some of the building materials.

MGM is moving forward with their renovation of MGM Grand Las Vegas, but the materials were all purchased in ahead of time.

What they're saying is the slowdown in visitation, they're going to rush this-- They're going to rush the renovation through so they'll be ready for when tourism picks back up.

The other question we don't know is how the tariffs will hit on the A's stadium.

You know, we've heard one talk that said it's 1.75 billion gone up to 2 billion maybe.

We don't know.

So that's the other question that's still kind of lingering out there with tariffs.

-Chris, I want to run a quote by you from Adam Cox.

He is a New York University Law School professor, a leading immigration law expert.

He said, the Biden administration, the Obama administration, they also pursued deportation pretty aggressively in some senses.

The Trump administration is simply choosing to arrest lots more people, like green card holders who have old criminal convictions that have long made them deportable, but those people weren't priorities for deportation under either the Biden administration or the Obama administration.

Your thoughts on that?

-Yeah, I mean, our federal government has been enforcing immigration laws the entire time.

This is not, that's not something new.

What's new is the aggression in the enforcement and using extreme tools at the government's disposal to enforce our immigration laws, even for relatively minor violations or people that we we don't necessarily want to kick out of our country.

And it seems like the administration has even sort of built its brand around this cruelty that we've been seeing.

And that's part of the fear, right, that people-- there's sort of two parts to this.

One is that if they come here, are they going to find themselves in a detention center?

It's unclear to folks coming here is that going to happen?

And then they see the headlines and they worry about it.

Although, sort of tying back into the tariffs, there's also just this whipsawing back and forth about what, what is the policy this week?

And when we talk about the tariffs, right, they change based upon what's being ordered by the federal government from day to day.

But there's also just the added fact at least one federal court has found that these tariffs are unconstitutional, right?

And while that order has stayed right now, there hasn't been a final ruling on it.

It was a three-judge panel out of the federal court that handles these sort of things.

And so who knows what tomorrow is going to bring as far as what this is concerned.

And that's maybe an important part about civil liberties; they create stability.

When you limit what the government can do and you don't have one person the government who can wave a wand and impact all of our lives, then if you're coming here, you know what to expect versus-- and this is something else that's coming up again and again in the travel advisories.

I mean, you look at all these European countries.

They're simply telling their people, look, we don't know what's going to happen.

You might want to call the embassy ahead of time just to see what's going on this week.

And if I'm planning two months out for my vacation and I don't know what the laws are going to be, I mean, wouldn't I rather go someplace where there's not this kind of drama?

-Thank you so much both for your time.

We've run out of time, but thank you for coming in.

And thank you for watching.

For more information on any of the topics discussed today, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

♪♪