Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024 | 2 a.m.
A headline initially used in a Las Vegas Review-Journal online story implied that a UNLV professor was endorsing Donald Trump for president.
But Amanda Belarmino, an associate hospitality professor at UNLV, stressed to the Sun that while she agrees that Trump’s economic proposals might be good for Las Vegas tourism, she’s not publically backing either candidate in this year’s presidential election. She additionally said that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ economic plans could also be promising for our economy.
The story, with the headline “Trump election win bodes well for Las Vegas tourism economy, expert says,” wasn’t about the presidential race. It was about sports tourism giving a boost to the economy.
The headline was later changed to be more reflective of the story, “Sports tourism aiding Las Vegas economy.”
The story, citing an email interview with Belarmino, says that “a win from Donald Trump in the November election for president would likely help the tourism economy. She declined to expand on why.”
Using the Trump headline suggests Belarmino was endorsing Trump, when she told the Sun she made no such endorsement.
The potential effects of some of Vice President Kamala Harris’ policies are harder to measure than what Trump has already done or proposed, she said.
“The policies Trump put forth are policies that tend to help us,” Belarmino said. “The policies that Harris has put forth do not necessarily have that straight line.”
As Las Vegas continues its recovery from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, local experts are split on which candidate’s policy proposals would benefit the city’s tourism and economy in the next four years.
The person leading the country for the next four years won’t immediately affect the path of gaming and tourism in Las Vegas, said Andrew Woods, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at UNLV. Woods, unlike Belarmino, is an economist.
“In the short run, there’s not much (a president can) do that impacts tourism,” Woods said. “But in the long run fiscal policy, monetary policy, how they respond to national crisesis really important to the strength of our economy.”
Woods emphasized that there wasn’t a specific candidate he was endorsing in his professional capacity because he believes it’s important to strictly analyze the policies and their effects.
“Historically, we’ve had great economies under Democrats and Republicans. We’ve had terrible economies under Democrats and Republicans,” Woods said. “I think it’s important that we separate the two.”
The candidates share a policy of proposing to eliminate taxes on tips for workers. Many tourism workers in Las Vegas rely on tips.
Woods raised questions about the cost of the proposal, how it would be instituted and its long-term ramifications.
“Depending on how it’s done because there’s different proposals, if you take away Social Security and Medicare payments and unemployment payments by our workers who depend on tips, you’re basically leaving them naked to the winds of the business climate,” Woods said. “Or economic climate, where if there’s another recession, or when they go to retire, they may not have anything in the bank to kind of get by on, and that’s why we have those programs.”
For Woods, the unemployment rate from the pandemic was “a horror story.” In April 2020, while Trump was still president, Nevada had the highest number of people out of work in the entire country, surpassing its own previous unemployment high with a rate of 28%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“I never want to see the Las Vegas Strip down again because we can’t handle a national emergency like the pandemic and don’t really have a plan,” Woods said. “That in itself was very harmful to our economy.”
Belarmino said it was fair to give a pass to both the Trump administration in its final days in early 2021 and President Joe Biden early on in his term because the pandemic was “unprecedented times.” Inflation is a key issue and continuing on the path of this current administration wouldn’t help Las Vegas, she said.
Belarmino said one of the ways Las Vegas bounced back from pandemic losses included a rebrand as a high-end vacation spot rather than a value-based one.
“So (for) some of the consumers that are coming here, we are a bargain compared to San Francisco or New York,” Belarmino added.
Business appears to be booming on the Resort Corridor.
Las Vegas welcomed 40.8 million visitors in 2023, marking a 5% increase from 2022. This year, it is expected to top the visitation record of 43 million visitors in 2019 before the pandemic.
And at Harry Reid International Airport, there was an annual passenger record 57.6 million travelers — both arriving and departing flights — in 2023.
Woods stressed the importance the next four years would have for Las Vegas in continuing the growth, saying, “We want this to be a vibrant, fun, growing place for people to visit, work and play, and that requires stability at the federal level.”
The Sun’s Haajrah Gilani contributed to this story