Gary Shapiro, president of the organizing association of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) still remembers July 27, 2020. It’s the day he spent “Painful phone calls” to several of its partners in Las Vegas to tell them that the world’s largest exhibition dedicated to new technologies will not be physically held in 2021. “Many were hoping for the resumption of international events in January 2021”, he testifies.
Alas, like most of the major events that punctuate the calendar of “Sin City”, the CES will not have withstood the Covid-19 earthquake either. An economic blow for the city: nearly 200,000 visitors who, at the start of the year, will not occupy hotel rooms, will not spend their money on the avenue of the Strip, in casinos or restaurants. Ditto with the cancellation of the rodeo, which annually attracts 170,000 fans to the city.
High unemployment rate
In the first eleven months of the year 2020, the number of visitors fell by 55%, to reach 17.8 million people. In 2020, the city should experience its lowest attendance for more than thirty years. With a direct effect on employment. The MGM Resorts group, which owns the main hotels in the city, announced at the end of August 2020, the elimination of 18,000 jobs.
According to the latest figures provided in January by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Las Vegas is the US metropolis with the highest unemployment rate (11.5%), after peaking at the height of the crisis more than 30%. And the outlook is hardly encouraging: despite restrictions limiting gatherings, the number of people positive for Covid-19 has skyrocketed since September 2020, reaching more than 2,600 new daily cases at the end of last year.
Ironically, 2021 opened in Las Vegas with the delivery of the extension to the Convention Center, where CES was to be held. “We will be back in 2022”, Mr. Shapiro promises. Many specialists believe that Las Vegas will not return to the level of attendance of 2019 before 2023 or 2024.
