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Casinos Adapt to New Security Era

LAS VEGAS -- Lodging executives learned one hard lesson from the travel decline following Sept. 11, Mirage Resorts Chief Executive Officer and Bellagio President Bobby Baldwin said Thursday.

Spending money on advertising when the public has no appetite to travel is a big mistake, the executive told attendees at the Las Vegas International Hotel and Restaurant Show seminar.

"You can't compete with CNN," Baldwin explained. "You might as well throw your money down the sewer."

But, the terrorist attacks also taught the industry some other valuable lessons about adapting to customer expectations, they said.

"We've changed," Baldwin said. "The traveling public has an appetite for a little more risk given the international situation, but they also expect more security."

Bellagio executives, for instance, made a number of security enhancements at the center Strip property in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes.

Some of the noticeable changes included:

-- Visual checks of vehicle trunks before drivers can park in the self-park garage.

-- Visual inspection of all deliveries to the loading dock.

-- X-ray inspection of all packages.

Bellagio bought state-of-the-art, airport quality X-ray equipment after Sept. 11, Baldwin said, explaining, "We tried to tighten security as much as we could without sacrificing guest satisfaction."

Another change that customers will not notice was made possible by the nature of the casino business.

"Bellagio has 8,000 cameras," Baldwin said, to scattered gasps from a group of about 100 lodging industry professionals attending the seminar at the Las Vegas Convention center. "Those cameras were mainly used to follow money, but about half of those have moved to cover threats we know about."

Howard Johnson President Mary Mahoney noted that her mid-market brand company asked franchise owners to add more lights in parking areas and hallways and outside front lobbies.

Baldwin said the new security measures don't eliminate the risk for tourist-dependent markets like Las Vegas.

"I think any point in the U.S. and in the world is one event away from a major disruption," Baldwin said.

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