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Las Vegas Spinmeisters Struggle with Impact of Sept. 11 Attacks

LAS VEGAS — Some of the Las Vegas tourism industry's most visible spokespeople have offered an unusually tempered take on the city's economic fortunes since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Yes, hotel occupancy rates have improved on Friday and Saturday nights as travel fears waned, but the mouthpieces warn that business remains well-below normal throughout the remainder of the week.

Yes, nearly 3,000 of the nearly 14,000 casino workers who lost their jobs in the weeks after the attacks have returned to work, but the flacks say that many are back just part time while tens of thousands of others work reduced schedules.

Normally upbeat public relations executives are offering such a guarded view of reality that at times they sound more like spin-wary journalists than Pollyannas of spin. But their pronouncements, whether by design or happenstance, have targeted several constituencies.

There are angry casino industry workers who have wondered if they're next to lose hours or jobs and complain that the financial fallout from the attacks has been used by gaming bosses as a shallow pretext for job cuts.

There are tourists considering travel plans and corporate shareholders attempting to gauge the financial well-being of their investments.

There are state and local politicians who rely on the tourism industry to produce tax revenues that pay for government programs but must also seek votes from disgruntled workers.

And at least one spinmeister cites an additional reason for the circumspect tone: he doesn't want to mislead reporters with whom he's worked years to build open and honest relationships.

"They wouldn't have taken you seriously and you wouldn't have been seen as a credible source," argues Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority spokesman Rob Powers.

In the first weeks that followed the terror attacks, numerous stories were reported about empty Strip hotels, restaurants and showrooms, and Las Vegas image maker Billy Vassiliadis worried that those reports would keep visitors from coming.

"If there's a sense (travelers aren't) going to be here others aren't going to come," Vassiliadis said, citing the results of past studies and focus groups.

In those mid-September days, the city's message builders talked daily as they struggled to assess events. The uncertainty led to the formation of a communications committee by the casino industry's in-state lobbying arm, the Nevada Resort Association, which is composed of the largest Strip operators.

"It helped underscore the importance of having a coherent communications policy," said one casino executive, acknowledging that some might view the newborn panel as a transparent effort to coordinate spin.

"The whole world," he said, "does a spin."

Yet, MGM Mirage's Alan Feldman, who has been the most vocal of all Las Vegas public relations executives since Sept. 11, said the challenge remains.

"None of us has ever seen this circumstance in our careers where the two strategic messages are so completely opposite each other," Feldman said.

"Business is down, and we are facing a new business model that is causing us to make very difficult choices about staffing levels, hours of operations, and budgets, but the other message is we're still open for business and Vegas is a great place to be right now."

The normally low-key Feldman was recently embroiled in a very public fight with the news staff of Las Vegas City Life. The alternative weekly newspaper ripped the casino company's post-Sept. 11 elimination of 6,000 jobs as well as MGM Mirage's request that the United Way redistribute a portion of the $1 million it donated for victim relief in New York City, so the money could aid Las Vegas' newly unemployed.

The story went on to say that some company employees had labeled MGM Mirage Chairman Terry Lanni — Osama bin Lanni — a slam that especially angered Feldman, who pulled his company's advertising from City Life and its sister publication after characterizing the newspaper with an epithet.

"Maybe under different circumstances you just ignore it," Feldman said, "but there's too much at stake."

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