This week on Nevada Week, how close is Las Vegas' return to pre-COVID convention and trade show business.

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

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

We'll discuss the state of Southern Nevada's all important convention and trade show industry ahead.

But first, an interview with U.S.

Senator Jacky Rosen, whose Omnibus Travel and Tourism Act created the first ever federal position fully dedicated to coordinating tourism strategy across the federal government.

The position that the Omnibus Travel and Tourism Act creates, first off, I was surprised to learn that it didn't already exist.

Were you surprised?

(Jacky Rosen) Really surprised.

And you know, when the global pandemic hit, and we realized how every impact of our-- every part of our society was impacted.

And of course here in Nevada we know that tourism is a top economic driver for us.

Las Vegas Strip shut down, and all the subsequent businesses, our conventions, shut down, what an impact it had on us, and we had no one who's overseeing a national strategy.

Now, we hope we don't have a global pandemic again, but we still have to think about what does that mean.

Transportation, workforce, immigration, visas, international travel.

There's so many other things, of course, even moving goods around.

You want to go to a fabulous restaurant wherever you go on vacation?

Well, that food has to come from somewhere.

It has to get here, and you have to think about what that means.

And so this person, this new new person, whoever it will be, will work with the President, the administration, to try to gather some good names to give to him to nominate.

They'll set the foundation for this role.

And we're hoping that they create a short-term strategy and then a long-term strategy as we begin to build out.

Broadband, really important for tourism, right?

Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, investing heavily in broadband, I was part of that committee that helped right at the '22, and airports and broadband were my piece.

So it is really important that we have good broadband, especially in our rural areas.

You want to go to over here in Las Vegas, but you want to go to see some of the darkest skies in Nevada, ride that Sky Train, you want to be able to book that, or book your travel anywhere, you need internet.

-So is it accurate to say that this position was created out of COVID?

-Well, I think we realize the need for one person to kind of coordinate all pieces and parts.

And so I think that COVID really just highlighted the need, that it should come from not many departments in many areas, but have one person to kind of oversee and coordinate with all of that.

So the coordination, I think, is what came out of COVID.

Yes.

-And how does this act help Las Vegas, which already has the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, arguably one of the more powerful public agencies promoting tourism in the country?

-So let's talk about international tourism.

We know that that lag-- Of course I helped work with the President to be sure that we got that COVID, the restriction of international travel, the COVID vaccination coming through.

That was instrumental for our international travelers to come back, bringing them not just for regular vacations, but it helps our convention business, as you speak about the Las Vegas Convention Authority.

And so international travel, visa wait times, that's another huge issue for people to come in.

So I think that'll be one thing that really helps Las Vegas, international travel visa wait times.

Another thing that will help, speaking of international travel, is we have a one stop security pilot program.

And so what does that mean?

It means if you come in from, oh, I'll say a major airport like in London or Paris that we, as a trusted airport, you want to come here, you have to change planes, your bags will already come straight through to your destination.

That's going to create a better customer experience for people.

And of course, your travel begins the minute you leave the door.

So whether it's how you get to your airport or your train or your bus, however you go, how your bags get there, how you get there, all of that matters.

So that's one thing we'll be focusing on right away.

-In the case of what just happened with Southwest Airlines, their turmoil during the holidays and after, would this Act have addressed that?

-You know, I had another bill that was signed into law called the Tourism Act, and that calls in the Department of Transportation, and now Secretary Buttigieg, to report to us about their strategy in the transportation sector as it relates to tourism.

I know Secretary Buttigieg is going to be looking into this.

Of course, I'm on the Commerce Committee.

I'm the Chair of the Subcommittee for Tourism.

I'll be working with Chairwoman Cantwell trying to determine what we have to look at for the transparency of this going forward so, again, this doesn't happen again.

What happened was, I guess, the perfect storm, because it happened all across the country.

Wasn't a regional outbreak.

It wasn't a regional disaster.

And some airlines weren't prepared, and they have to be responsible.

-The LVCVA and the Nevada Resort Association both supported this Act.

But both have mentioned, when talking about Nevada's recovery from the pandemic, that business travel is still an area that is lagging.

How would this legislation help in that area?

-Well, I think you have to look at business sectors, so that a lot of that, of course, is a convention-- conventions that come in.

We're one of the top convention destinations.

I don't have to tell you.

I would argue that businesses, it's great to do things on Zoom and conference call and all of that, but there's nothing like being together in person to exchange ideas, to create and collaborate and create new partnerships.

So I think that we're going to have to look with the Department of Transportation, and of course, this new Assistant Secretary in Commerce to see how we can make sure that business travel stays robust.

It's important not just to Las Vegas, but I will tell you that the top five economic drivers of probably every state in this country, one of them is tourism.

-And what work remains to improve travel and tourism that perhaps you'll be pursuing this legislative session?

-We're going to investigate and look a little bit about what we can do about the airline situation, of course, as we saw over the holidays, a lot of those cancellations and bags and, and travel distress.

And I really want to be sure that as we build out the Bipartisan Infrastructure Jobs Act that we have and invested all that money in infrastructure, that what we're building is smart and it's connected and that we have that good broadband base, that our airports are expanding, and that they are safer, that our freeways, whatever they are, have that, we'll say, broadband, again, that Wi-Fi that connects for accident reporting, for travel times, all of those things.

So I hope that as we continue to build out our infrastructure, we're smarter and more connected.

And that's going to make not just tourism better, but it's going to make our everyday lives better.

-Let's narrow in now on Las Vegas convention and tradeshow tourism.

Two large shows wrapped up this month with World of Concrete expecting 60,000 attendees this year.

That's 20,000 more than last year.

And at CES, organizers reported more than 115,000 attendees, exceeding expectations.

So what does this indicate about the industry's recovery from COVID?

For that we welcome Howard Stutz, gaming reporter for The Nevada Independent .

Howard, welcome.

(Howard Stutz) Thanks for having me on.

-First off, we have a lot of people that are new to Nevada and new to Las Vegas.

Can you summarize just how important this trade show and convention industry is here?

-Well, that's a-- It's a great question because it's grown over the years, the entire convention business.

Nevada, years ago 2019, that we had 6.6 million convention attendees as part of, as part of our visitation, the visitor totals that come out.

Last-- Right now, 2020, it was zero because of the, because of all the conventions got cancelled.

2021 we're starting to build back up.

Right now through November, because we're looking at the numbers for 2022, we'll get December numbers at the end of this, at the end of this month.

It's about 4.2 million convention attendees.

So we're getting back.

And a lot of the gaming companies were very-- look forward thinking in their, in their comments during the earnings calls last year saying, We've seen a lot of forward bookings coming up for 2023.

It's going to be a good year.

And CES and World of Concrete have proved that already.

CES I think last year was about 60,000, you know.

That didn't happen in 2020.

Or it did, it was right at the beginning of the pandemic and it started to, you know, there was a lot of-- some people canceled.

Is was a little bit, a little slow.

Obviously didn't happen in 2020.

2021 was only 60,000 people.

So this year, you know, it's-- You know, 2022, 60,000 people.

This year really-- -115,000 attendees.

-Yeah, so it's a really good sign.

And World of Concrete was been packed down there, and all brought back all the bricklaying competition.

So there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of positive sites looking forward right now.

-And you talked about the earnings calls in which CEOs from the Strip will be on those calls.

And it's not just fluff.

It's not that they're putting that out there as an optimistic point of view, because you have to book conventions quite far out, correct?

-You book them a year, some years in advance.

You know, we have some that are booked out that it's like a three year-- they don't happen for three years, and they'e already booked for, you know, three years from now.

One of the signs that we saw last year, the Global Gaming Expo was the largest convention, you know, for the gaming industry.

It happens every, every October in Las Vegas at the Venetian complex.

2020, it obviously went virtual.

Last-- in 2021, they had a scaled down version, maybe about-- I think they had attendance about 13,000.

We actually did a Nevada Week taping there, and it was an empty floor, I mean, practically.

I told, I told the host it was like, you know, in normal times, this would be packed with three, four booths.

So this, this past one in October almost topped, almost met the record in terms of, in terms of attendance.

They had about 25,000 attendees.

Not the same scale of CES and World of Concrete, but that was a large-- and we had a large number, and we had international travelers back, too, for it.

So it was a really good sign moving forward into this year.

-Okay.

Steve Hill, president of the LVCVA, says he thinks there's a pretty good possibility this year there could be those 6.6 million attendees here for conventions and trade shows.

That happened in 2019.

You think this will be the year we're back to normal, or still getting there?

-You know, I always hate doing that kind of prediction, because you never know.

You know, something weird could happen.

Like international travel is the biggest, along with conventions, that was one of the two big keys we needed for Las Vegas on the comeback, you know, following the pandemic.

International travel is still slowly coming back.

We don't have any direct flights from Asia, I don't think, set.

We have South Korean Air flying in here, Korean Air flying in.

We don't have those yet.

We have a lot from Europe and other markets.

There has been some talk that I think the U.S. was going to halt.

You know, asked for, like, quarantines or tests from China because they had an uptick in COVID.

So that's going to be the big key before we really are-- can say, yeah, we're back to normal.

And things are moving forward.

I think that'll be one of the big keys to look forward to.

-International travel is such a big part of the population that comes for these conventions and the trade shows.

But it's interesting you mentioned that talk about the U.S. possibly imposing quarantines, because China is now getting rid of their quarantine requirements.

-Right.

And that came up earlier, I think like toward the end of last year.

And so hopefully it won't happen or it won't.

It may, you know-- it'll just go away real quick.

But you know, international travel, let's remember, the airport is going to set a record this year for terms of passengers.

The record was 51.5 million back in 2019.

We're already at just like-- we're just, we're close.

We're over 48.3 million passengers through November.

If December holds, certainly we don't know.

We know about the Southwest meltdown and everything.

But if December holds to like the average, we'll break that record.

And that's with international air passenger volume still below the record of 3.8 million.

We're about 2.3 million through through November.

-Wow.

Okay, so you talk about convention and trade show tourism.

It's different than visitor volume, though.

Those are two different numbers.

And how do the two compare as we talk about recovery from COVID?

-Well, you add in convention, convention business is added into that visitor volume, but the total visitor volume where we're at right now is we're still behind.

I mean, we're-- Through November was 35.5 million.

The record is-- We're down 9% compared to 2019.

That's going to be-- That's where we have to come back was 40.

The record visitor volume ever was 42.9 million.

So we're, we're still behind it.

That's really where it's going to come back.

And a lot of what's going on this year may, will probably help it.

-Talk about some of what is going on this year that will help it.

-Well, of course we have-- Allegiant Stadium has been, has brought in a lot of folks, you know, not just for the Raiders games.

I wish it could be for maybe one or two UNLV games, but not for UNLV.

But for all the college, the other events they've had there.

We've got the Shrine, the East-West Shrine game coming up.

There's-- They have the Notre Dame BYU game last year.

So they play these nonconference college games there.

Las Vegas Bowl.

-Concerts as well.

-Concerts have been, you know, incredibly-- It's been done really well, and we've got more on the books for this year.

Allegiant has helped boost that, boost that tourism number, helped bring more people in.

But it's just going to be-- The other events are going on.

We've got, of course, Formula One we've talked about.

I'm sure we're going to talk about that, you know, ad nauseam this year.

But that's going to be a very highly attended event.

It's already-- The room rates, we talked about it once before, are going up because of Formula One.

In 2024, we have the Super Bowl, you know, and we'll always get-- Always remember Vegas, as you well know, we do very well when the Super Bowl is somewhere, because people want to come here if they can't go to the Super Bowl itself.

You have March Madness.

So you have those sporting events that, those big weekends that draw visitors here, even if they're not even in this market.

And remember, the West Regional is going to be at T-Mobile Arena in, at the end of March, beginning of April.

I'm not sure of the date.

So that's the first time we'll have that event here.

So that will add people.

-It all sounds really good, but then we hear talk about a potential recession.

What have you heard?

Have you heard anything on the earnings calls about concerns?

-They've been very positive on these earnings calls.

You know, years ago there was a recession before the big Great Recession in the late 2000s.

The recession, Vegas seemed recession proof.

We learned we're not recession proof when, when it hit in the late 2000s.

Nobody knows what the extent of a recession would be, what it might look like.

You know, people have been, even after COVID, when people were cutting back, they were still traveling.

And we saw travel boost up in the-- all through 2022.

That's why our numbers are still, you know, pretty good.

You still get, you know, they're getting good room rates on the Strip.

You know, they set records for the number, for the amount of prices they were getting on the Strip in terms of rooms in October.

So we don't know if the convention is gonna slow things or not.

I mean, it's just-- I mean, a recession will slow things or not.

We'll see what happens.

-Okay, so you've talked about how events have risen room rates in your reporting and brought in visitor volume as well.

Has the landscape of Las Vegas changed in terms of gaming revenue versus nongaming revenue?

-Remember, Nevada, for years-- old guys like me remember this-- Nevada and Atlantic City were the only places in the country you could find a casino.

Today, there's like 37 or so states with commercial casinos.

Another 20 states have tribal casinos.

Sports betting has expanded throughout the U.S.

I mean, you can go anywhere you want almost in the country and go to a casino or bet on sports or something.

So that's what's changed.

Over that time in Las Vegas on the Strip, gaming revenue wasn't the driver for the, for the big revenue driver for the Strip.

It was the nongaming stuff: the hotels, the restaurants, the shopping, the entertainment.

Allegiant Stadium has added to that because of the entertainment.

So in the-- It used to be, it was around the time, it was 65-35%.

Now, the numbers are pretty skewed right now.

In a fiscal year, it'll-- Just coming out today, as we're on the show here, for fiscal '22, which ended July of last year, you're looking at 30% of the gaming, 30% of the revenues on the Strip were from gaming and another 69-70, almost 70% were from nongaming.

-Wow!

-So we see that come back even higher.

In the time when Vegas had-- We had what?

The Strip had like the $7.1 billion revenue year in all of 2021.

In 2022, we still have November numbers.

The Strip gaming revenue is 7.5 billion.

It's already a record, and we're still, we're still waiting for December to be counted.

So there is, they're big numbers.

I get, I mean, I'm not a math guy.

I get confused.

But you can see right there that there is people have disposable income, they're coming to Vegas, and they're spending it.

-In gaming traditionally, and in nongaming-- -Nongaming is big.

And we've got a big nongaming event happening, project coming up, that's supposed to launch later this year.

-What are we talking about?

-The Sphere.

-Ah, the MSG Sphere.

Yep, for more entertainment.

Howard Stutz, The Nevada Independent , thank you so much for your time.

-Anytime.

-And a bit more on CES.

According to the Consumer Technology Association, this year's show with it's more than 115,000 attendees marked the largest audited global tech event since early 2020.

Nevada Week 's Maria Silva was one of the nearly 5,000 media members who got to check out some of the cool tech and gadgets.

(Maria Silva) We are going to be seeing a lot of this here at CES 2023.

The wow factor, right?

Robots everywhere!

Some really cool things happening, and I'm so happy to say that I've been ♪ reunited,♪♪ and it feels so good, with the talented Ted Murphy with Izea.

(Ted Murphy) I'm so happy to be here.

-We were here, what, 11 years ago.

It's our 11 year reunion.

How things have changed here at CES.

-It's all robots.

-Let's talk a little bit about what we have behind us here.

-Oh, my gosh.

This is, it's a scale model of what a cargo ship of the future could be.

And this isn't just a regular cargo ship.

It's autonomous.

It's driven by AI.

It's electric.

-You were so great with the thousands and thousands of items.

You kind of scaled it down to some really cool-- -Really cool.

- --some of them functional for the workplace.

We'll talk about that in a little bit.

But you chose a flying vehicle.

-Of course!

And it's not quite there yet, right?

It's a prototype, but it's out there.

And that's the future, and it's probably gonna be available to you and I in our lifetime, which is so cool.

-Isn't that crazy?

Like we saw growing up on the Jetsons , right?

-Yeah.

-Those flying cars.

And we see it in movies, and then think that it will actually become a reality in our lifetimes.

It's wild.

-It's gonna happen.

[bubbling sound] ♪♪♪ What other things do you have in store for us?

-Oh, my gosh.

We are going to be wearing an exoskeleton.

If you ever saw Aliens , you'll remember Sigourney Weaver in the giant exoskeleton.

It's not quite that, but we're gonna be wearing exoskeletons.

[whirring sound] -German Bionic, and I feel like you're coming out of a Marvel movie.

Let's turn you around.

-I know.

It's crazy!

-That's pretty awesome.

Okay, so what are we looking at right here?

-This thing is the CrayX.

It's really designed to help people who are doing repetitive tasks in things like warehouses, airports.

If you have to bend down a lot and pick things up, this will help you with up to 66 pounds.

-And how does it function?

How does it work?

I mean, it's collecting data as you're doing this, right?

-It's collecting data.

It's sending it back.

It's all anonymized.

And I can adjust the amount of resistance here and the amount of help that it's providing me in getting back up.

-So walk us through how this is going to help a lot of the factory workers?

You mentioned also the airports.

Maybe one day we'll actually see it at Harry Reid International Airport.

You never know.

It's already being used at some places?

-Yeah.

Yeah, it's being used in airports.

It's being used in a lot of factories right now and warehouses.

They're even talking about eventually this coming to like a Home Depot where you could rent it.

♪♪♪ -Okay, here we go.

All right, I got this.

All right, no?

Whoa!

This is so-- I can be here all day!

[laughing] This is great.

And again, the fact that you are helping these workers is just pretty awesome, you know?

It's fun to wear, and it's looks really cool.

And again, I feel like I need to, whew, take off, but it's again, the fact that it is going to make a huge difference in the workplace.

There's so many great prototypes.

A lot of them already launching, but this is a prototype.

-This is a prototype, but this is a CES 2023 Innovation Award winner.

This is a portable wind turbine.

So this will generate about 200 watts of electricity.

So this is a 5000 watt hour battery supply.

You can see all the plugs here.

But what's so cool about this, check this out.

Boom, boom.

-Ta-da!

-And now we've got solar panels as well.

This is amazing if you want to go camping, you want to get off the grid for a while, but with all the natural disasters that we've been having lately, it's a game changer.

- An unforgettable hero is about to return .

[singing in sync] Transformers, More than Meets the Eye.

Transformers, Robots in Disguise.

-Okay, I am geeking out.

My inner child is coming out, you guys, because I grew up like many of you guys, watching Transformers .

-This is an amazing robot that actually transforms.

Watch this.

With a voice command-- Hey, Optimus Prime.

Transform.

How amazing is this?

-I am geeking out.

And again, this is not your typical Transformer toy.

-Oh, no.

-This is a robot robot.

-Yes, this is a thousand dollar robot robot that can be completely programmed.

The kids can start as low as four years old with a simple app, and then they can connect it to their computer and get much more complicated with this thing.

-This company is, like, groundbreaking, doing some really cool things.

-They are blowing up online.

-Some of our characters that we love.

Not only Optimus Prime and the gang, but who else?

-Over there is Buzz Lightyear.

That one's a prototype.

They haven't fully released that one yet, but I think it's coming out pretty soon.

And they've got actually other things in the works with Disney, so we'll see what happens there.

-Because now when I think of Disney, I think of Star Wars .

I'm envisioning quite a bit of things with that.

-If they come out with a Darth Vader, I'm totally getting that.

[laughing] Hey, Optimus Prime, rollout.

(Optimus Prime) Let's roll.

-All right, Ted.

So after all that walking, it's time to take a little break, right?

And this is our new cool ride.

Tell us about this.

-This is what I'm talking about.

Stretch out.

Lean back.

-Relax.

-So this is actually a concept for a taxi.

Have you ever been in a taxi that's this comfortable?

-There's so much leg room.

-This is the AKXY 2.

And I mean, if this is what the future is gonna be like.

-Sign me up.

-I mean, I'm all for it.

-All right, Ted.

Again, another CES in the books, 2023.

Thank you so much, my friend.

High five, and let's go.

We don't even need to drive.

By guys!

-See ya!

-Until next time.

Where are we going, the Strip?

-Oh, we're going to the future.

♪♪♪ -CES 2024 will take place January 9th through the 12th.

And for any of the resources discussed on this show, visit our website vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

Thank you for watching.

♪♪♪