Leading Las Vegas

Las Vegas never closes. Never. On January 23 2020, Wuhan China initiated a lockdown putting over 11 million people in quarantine to control the outbreak of COVID 19. However, the virus quickly spread across the globe, forcing nations to implement response plans that often includes closing businesses and quarantining citizens. In the United States, many governors implemented similar policies, including Nevada, on March 17 2020, Nevada's Governor Steve sisolak ordered businesses including casinos to close at midnight. The last time casinos in Las Vegas had been closed and mass was for a voluntary day of mourning. In honor of President John F. Kennedy's funeral in 1963. The business closure had an enormous economic impact on the community with $34 billion in estimated tourism industry losses to date. A key component of Las Vegas tourism is managing large crowds, which created tremendous complexity during a period where social distancing and quarantining became the norm. How did the tourist industry respond to these challenges? I'm Lorna booze, and this episode of leading Las Vegas will examine the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry in Las Vegas. We will hear from Lindsay Bartlett, the current Assistant Director for emergency management at the Venetian resort within the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, one of the premier hotel and convention properties in Las Vegas. The Venetian is the largest integrated resort property on the Las Vegas Strip consisting of 7092 hotel rooms, approximately 225,000 square feet of casino space 2.2 5 million square feet of convention and meeting space and 875,000 square foot retail shopping mall, entertainment venues, restaurants, bars and other amenities. It has over 10,000 employees and 5000 contractors. With a convention going on at full capacity the property can accommodate up to 100,000 people present at a time. The Venetian security department is the second largest security team in the state of Nevada, with around 650 members. Only Las Vegas Metro Police Department is larger between the Venetian Palazzo and the Venetian Convention and Expo Center. The property encompasses 18 million square feet. Stay with us as we hear from Lindsey how the Venetian went from a thriving destination spot on the strip to a ghost town overnight. Lindsay Bartlett was interviewed by Boyd Batali grisea Perez and Jasper Washington. And they talked about what happened when the famed Las Vegas Strip shut down how the hotel property leaders handled closure, how they reopened, how they developed plans to keep guests and employees safe, and how they responded to many challenges in the face of uncertainty. Lindsey relied on her long and impressive career in which she served as a first sergeant in the Air National Guard, as well as an operations manager and public relations specialist in the Air Force to help develop response strategies. She was no stranger to emergencies and crises as she had previously provided support with power rescue teams responding to disasters such as hurricanes, floods and wildfires. She was also working in security at the Bellagio Hotel, the night of the October 1 2017 shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest mass shooting in United States history.

I was actually on the floor in the middle of the casino on October one when everybody started running and screaming through the through the casino, run out the back back door. And it was interesting because it was another gentleman who was another officer. I've been there quite a few years but he was in the Army National Guard and we just all kind of stood and watched everybody and just kind of looked at each other and like what is going on, you know kind of thing. But it really did bring home that hey, when when people panic, all kinds of people get injured. The world just turned upside down. And then the the social media and all the stories and all the rumors that were going around, nobody knew what was going on. But people were making up, whatever, whatever sounded good. We finally closed down the casino floor and had to push people off the casino floor and oh boy, people didn't want to leave the slot machines. So again, eventually we got people off the casino floor, but that and when we get into talking about COVID You know, but you never you never close the casino floor. Yes. 24/7. So that was an experience from other casinos. Wow.

I've spoken with the chief medical officers of all of Nevada's hospitals to get their assess Many of our current situation, and most responsible next steps, they have advised me that the most effective course of action is to direct all Nevadans to stay home. And for non essential businesses to close to the public. For 30

days, familiarity with managing uncertainty in the October 1, shooting undoubtedly was helpful as the hotel properties faced a new threat when COVID-19 began to spread across the United States and into Las Vegas.

So the script shut down what 17th of March, yes, back in January, because we are part of a global business continuity management working group. So we have Well, only maybe for a couple more weeks, but partners in Singapore and Macau, our current executive director at that time in January, went to a meeting over there and came back with information. And we started this whole communication about this some crazy thing going on in Asia. And people don't really know what it is. So the 23rd of January of 2020, was the first time the first day we actually published a daily COVID. CIT, Rep. So this was before anybody else was even talking about it. And it was kind of in conjunction with our partners, you know, the other security teams in Macau and Singapore. And well, that CIT rep is still being written every day. So we've been doing this for since January of 2020. So we were already getting some inclination that there was something going on. But obviously, nobody was really talking about it. And then we had the NEPA, the Nevada preparedness Summit, in beginning of February, and nobody was talking about it. So when I Whoa, this is a little strange. There's something going on, but nobody's talking about it. So when things start rolling, for us, in some respects, it was no surprise that something was up. Yes. Now, it really was a surprise when it was like, Okay, we're shutting down everything. And for every strip property. Yes, some of the, you know, the other strip properties have properties in other parts of the country that deal with hurricanes and those kinds of things on on an annual basis. So those casinos, those hotels may shut down, and they have plans for that. But even those casinos have no plan for shutting down on the Las Vegas Strip. It never closes, they will never close. Meanwhile, they did

collaboration among individuals and teams became an important part of the response to COVID-19.

What did that mean to us? Well, it. As I say, it wasn't a huge surprise. In the level of surprises, yes, but nobody was prepared for it. However, I have to say, knowing our team on the property, like throughout the property, I have learned that all of the management, from VPS, the whole way down supervisors, that crisis managers every single day, because when you run a business as large as the Venetian, it's all about crisis management. So even though they don't necessarily talk the same language as us, they don't talk in ICS terms they don't talk in, when we talk about, you know, response and recovery and those kinds of things. They all talk that language, they all function that way. They all know how to get things done on the fly.

The teams have to work together to make critical decisions very quickly.

So obviously, things happen very fast. And they had to decide, you know, what were the mission essential tasks that had to continue? What were the things that obviously had to be shut down? And what do you do with the people who need to be there? Who your critical people, and it was like fast? I mean, it's kind of like a blink of an eye.

Developing a response plan in uncharted territory requires leaders to have some sense of how broad operations function, even if they aren't experts in an area,

and then also learning a little bit not being an expert, but learning a little bit about what what they have to do. You know, so, I don't know all the rules and regulations about casino, you know, and the gaming but I know enough, is sitting in trainings or, or listening or watching when they have to be concerned about this or that, oh, I know they're going to have to make phone calls about this or so then I can ask them like, okay, so when we talk about your external contacts, if something happens, who needs to be on that list?

Although most hotel properties have teams of experienced leaders who work together to develop response plans, they weren't quite prepared for the surreal nature that came with the shutdown. Lindsey talks about how dramatically everything changed, especially when it comes to the tourism industry.

It was freaky. I don't know, I can't, I can't necessarily explain it because we wasn't walking around the property. And it's just empty. Now. I heard from other properties, you know, they turn the lights off, they turn the music off. And so it's a ghost town. And it really did a number on on everybody's psyche. Yes. On our property. They didn't necessarily do that, to that extent. But some areas, they kind of darken, you know, turn the lights down a little bit, they never turn the lights off. But yeah, if you walk through a casino, and there's no lights on, and, and the music is turned off, the it's I mean, it's so big. And there's so many nooks and crannies, and you don't know who's around the next corner. That can be a little, little scary. I mean, there's no other way to put it, yes. But what we worked, what they did work out was that you need to keep the lights on, you know, especially when people are working there, you got to keep the lights on, you've got to keep some kind of background noise, you know, you got to keep the air on. And not too because we started getting into summer too. So sometimes when you're working in a location, and the temperature was a little higher, you it was like, Oh, this is nasty, you know, so so that they you know, they kept the air on, but then that also ties back into the whole preservation of the property. Yes. So if you, if you shut down, and you start running the water, you turn the lights off, you turn the air off, the property starts to disintegrate. So then it's going to cost you more money to get it back up and running again. So that's so I'm sure that there's there has to be that very fine balance. How much effort and time and money do we put into keeping the building alive? While there's nobody in there?

Lindsay's behind the scenes look at the pandemic from inside the casino does seem terrifying, as Las Vegas went from the buzz of a bustling city to the silence of a pandemic. As she mentioned, things don't just come to a screeching halt, some things need to continue. And Lindsey goes into a little bit of this

progress did not stop. Obviously, security was there full time. Now, as you as you know, Jasper, the the security on the strip was a concern for many properties. We did not I mean, we, we had, you know, to deal with certain things. But we did not necessarily have some of the concerns that some of the other properties had. But that's because we kept our entire security team on property. So it was very evident that when people tried to get into the property, somebody was there to meet them. And of course, we have a canine team. That's, that's very active and prominent. And we also have our counter surveillance team, which is out. And so as soon as we saw things, that maybe when were undesirable, then we tried to deal with it. And then also that meant, you know, there was some there were some situations on the strip where there was some graffiti, and those kinds of things that went on some of the some of the areas. So if there was a type of damage or anything that occurred to our property at any time, it was immediately dealt with. So it didn't it wasn't, you know, oh, well wait two, three weeks to take care of that. No, it was it was addressed. So that also kept our whole location, a little cleaner and a little more secure. But that was because we have that security presence.

It is incredible that so much work goes into continuing the upkeep of the buildings. That's something that most people probably didn't think about as they focused on their own issues.

I'm pleased to announce as a result of the Nevadan cooperating in doing so well in the social distancing, wearing masks that we are on track with a reopening criteria. We are doing tremendous a lot of the again, I don't want to get as is it 92% Is it 95% The vast majority of Nevadans are doing a great job. It is only because they are doing such a great job that we're able to do this today. It's not because of the people that are complaining, it's because of the people that aren't complaining and are doing a good job.

Thankfully, the shutdown ended and properties had to consider what was needed for them to be resilient, including the development of business continuity plans, and creating more effective crisis communication strategies.

I think as an organization, our resilience, you know, the importance of building that resilience and having plans and procedures and protocols helps our program and our process of the business continuity management piece. Because now it's it's, it's very evident, that's very much part of business. So I think as a property, you know, the importance of like collaboration, and communication. And so I think we've developed further with our team member communication from the Human Resources side, I think our media marketing team has become better at their crisis communication, I think that the property as a whole now realize the value of the whole preparedness cycle. And you know, when we talk to them about preparedness, and what it is, and the five mission, areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery, how important it is to understand those and to be proactive in thinking through those processes. And then also tying that into the whole business continuity management continuum. So, and obviously, it's a business. Yes, so we're emergency management. But we are really the most where that really the Business Continuity Management Program.

Not only did Lindsay discussed the internal workings during the initial pandemic, she also addressed what it was like once tourism was free to return. In some cases, this required them to become experts in new technology, and even confront challenging language barriers.

We became the emergency managers, we became the thermal scanning experts. That whole the whole thing evolved over time. What happened initially? Was it came down that oh, we're probably going to be that's going to be probably the protocol. Because it was used overseas. Yes. So in short order, we ended up receiving 12 Thermal scanners from our property in Macau, they arrived, everything was in Mandarin. No, but then you think about it, oh, we have people on the property who speak Mandarin. So that's when we reached out to folks in casino or the butler's of all the teams that worked in particular with the Asian market. Got some translations gone? Worked out which buttons to press on the computer, so we could then actually finally get it into English. But then there were no instructions. So we literally had to learn press buttons, push buttons. How does this work? Oh, let me go over here, do a little research tells the thermal scanners, what's the process of 12 handhelds, and we had 12, black boxes and cameras that were attached to computers that we had to work out where to put them how to make them work, how to, to set them up within different places in the property. So we could have throughput of masses of people that were that their temperatures will be read.

In addition to the challenges posed by new technology and language barriers, the open nature of Las Vegas casinos posed additional challenges.

And the biggest challenge at first and, and probably now we wouldn't even think much about it. But if you think back before the pandemic here in the US, nobody, nobody gets in line. Everybody just comes in. We don't channel people through a through a specific area. So the biggest challenge at first was convincing our senior leadership that No, we only have a channel of about eight feet, we can't have 20 feet, we gotta cut it down. And we got to have an in and out. Or if we do that, sure, we can put hundreds of people through these scanners, but they have to be within this space. And that was a hard concept for everybody to accept at first because that was not the way we do business. We don't tell people which way they're going to go down the hallway. Now if you think about it today, that's what everybody everyone just gets in line and everyone just walked down the hallway. You know, we've been trying And I guess, you know, through through the last year, but so we spent a long time, a long time trying to work out where these these scanners will go.

Part of managing the COVID-19 crisis required leaders to think creatively about safety protocols that needed to be developed and implemented. An example of this was the incorporation of plexiglass shields on the casino floor.

If you came on onto the casino floor, every seat that you saw that at a table, you were in your own little compartment. Whoa. So I've never seen so much plexiglass in my life. Part of that, too, is part of how robust and how forward thinking our procurement team is because they started ordering products. So that we had enough Plexiglas so our carpenter shop actually went into production and made all these different products for tables for dining areas for you know, restrooms, anywhere that you'd have a space that you might need to be separated from somebody, even the poker that, you know, during the summer when we had the poker, they designed, you know, special plexiglass shields for the poker players.

safety protocols also involved procuring personal protective equipment or PPE is, that can be quite a challenge when dealing with the enormous scope of a Las Vegas Hotel and Casino.

And then the PPE. So when we, you know, when this all first started happening in when the shutdown first occurred, and you heard all the stories about, you know, not enough PPE, not enough masks, our owner actually flew in 2 million masks from overseas, a million masks went to New York and a million masks stayed in Las Vegas. And then just to give you a few numbers on this is just a security department. So if you think we started that process, maybe and you know, middle of March, going through the end of December, our security team, when it's our operations team is about 300 350 folks to go out on the floor, you know, over the three shifts. But our whole team is about 650. We went through just security team alone, in about what, nine months, let's say last year, 90,000 masks, and 200,000 like, you know, protective gloves. And that's just the security team. So you think about the amount of PPE that was purchased.

Okay, I can't resist this hurts my brain. Where does all that go? It's got to be disposed of somewhere.

Has anybody brought that up? Oh, yeah, I thought about it. No, no, that's true. So we were the first property to start a recycle program for masks. Beautiful. And again, that's part of our 360. Eco programs.

Crises may create opportunities to improve how cities and businesses operate. COVID-19 has led resort properties to implement new procedures and protocols that will make for a healthier environment going forward, including the development of Venetian clean and a large scale program designed to keep the property clean, and people safe.

I think that Venetian clean development process really did bring home, you know, how we can be better. We were we were pretty good. But we couldn't be better. You know, when it comes to, to cleanliness and health. We didn't talk about it. But we did when we first opened. We partnered with Las Vegas Convention and Visitors visitors and also like when and came up with a whole way to set up demonstrations on how to set up a convention space where you could actually use all the COVID protocols and comply but still have a convention going on. So different ways of seating people how to actually put three people through food lines, meeting spaces. What we would do on the loading docks to monitor people coming in and out and the processes and procedures. So there's a lot of things that we now have as plans that if tomorrow somebody said to us, oh, you need to shut down and you need to do some more scanning again. We've got it, we've got it nailed.

That's important for people visiting for pleasure. And to help bring conventions back to the city. Some Las Vegas conventions are small, with only a few 100 attendees, while others are massive, with 10s of 1000s of guests attending, or over 175,000. In the case of the Consumer Electronics Show, given the enormous economic impact these conventions have on the city of Las Vegas, hotel properties were particularly focused on their return.

So when we reopened, and we worked that whole process of what happens in the convention, that was along with the Venetian clean, that was a whole nother process that was developed, of how do we get conventions back? And how do we provide the resources and the support that they need? So even when it comes down to, you know, between, you know, when you have breakouts in a convention? Yes, you have people coming in and out of the rooms. So, there were times frame set for, you know, cleaning the rooms, and those kinds of things. And so, you know, as as as mandates have changed, then obviously, the normal baseline business changes to meet the CDC and state mandates, yes. And then the folks running the conventions can either pay for additional services, but they obviously can't go below the mandates.

COVID mandates have led to a variety of restrictions being implemented, which have been challenging to implement for many businesses, including those in the tourism sector.

Yes, it's, I mean, anytime we mandate, something like that, it's going to cause friction, shall we say? So we, we've experienced that friction, if you think about being on the pool deck, when it's 100 degrees, and being told that you need to wear a mask, you know, so it's a challenge? Yes. I think that in the industry is it's almost starting to become a way of life. So we have protocols in place, you know, if somebody exhibits symptoms, and staying on property, then obviously through the city, there's the opportunity to go get tested, there still is the one hotel in town that provides free lodging, if somebody ends up testing positive, and they can't leave, you know, leave town. But in general, if somebody comes on our property and test exhibit symptoms, or tests positive, then we actually encourage them to seek other accommodations. Or assistance. Yes. So So again, we we use the city resources. And that comes up quite frankly, too, when now we're starting to get conventions, we get different questions every day. And again, we have to be very cognizant about this, the health, you know, the privacy or the privacy, when we're not asking people, we can't tell people. But if you we have an EMP program, if somebody's feeling sick, and they asked for an EMP, then our EMTs will go and evaluate this.

With all the guests who visit a hotel, the size of the Venetian, it is inevitable that some will get sick and need medical care. attending to the needs of sick guests is part of the response plan.

And if somebody is exhibiting symptoms of COVID, it's like we offer them the opportunity to have a rapid test, you know, and if that test comes back negatives and stay in your room, you know, I mean, but if it comes back positive, then that's when our guest services, helps that person, you know, get to the right place. But that's that's part of our policy, when people ask, how are you going to keep us safe? You know, so we follow, we follow the city guidelines, that so we provide all the resources for somebody to help them if they do test positive.

Managing a hotel property during a pandemic is clearly a complicated endeavor, between figuring out how to shut down a property, maintaining it when it isn't being used, reopening it, developing new procedures to increase the safety of guests and employees implementing those procedures, and attending to the needs of guests who do become sick and require medical care, when they may be far away from home requires considerable planning, creativity and training. In order to effectively manage this response. It was essential to have strong relationships in place built on effective communication. Lindsay felt communication was the most important tool for leaders to utilize when responding to a crisis of this nature.

I think it's all about say communication, and being a golfer. Okay, so we know you talk about we talk a lot about Building relationships before the incident occurs. Yes. And I think that's a very big piece of it. The relationships are already there. You know, because we've spent several years, building personal relationships, as well as, you know, professional relationships.

We're here we're back. And you know, we know that Las Vegas anybody, in fact, in Southern Nevada knows, they choose to live here because they want to be a part of something dynamic. And so it was really tough, but we've been through tough times before. So it's just an exciting time for us now that we can touch and be among others who want to have a good time or do business here be a convention goer.

It's amazing to learn how much effort truly went into being able to operate in the unknown environment created by COVID-19. Within the tourism industry in Las Vegas, we also learned the different elements of leadership that needed to be utilized to manage the response and continue to operate in a very different environment than what had previously existed. We would like to thank Lindsay Bartlett for taking the time to sit with us. We would also like to thank our audio and editing staff for their assistance to create this podcast. Please listen to other episodes focused on the challenges of responding to the COVID 19 pandemic, and additional topics covered in other episodes of leading Las Vegas