HONOLULU (KHON2) — While some airlines are not offering any direct flights from Honolulu to Las Vegas at this time, businesses in Downtown Las Vegas are anticipating an influx of people.
“I think we’ll get some people wanting to see what Las Vegas is like, just walk around. I know we did that during the quarantine. We did that just to see,” said Kyrce Higa, whose family owns Las Vegas Jerky’s Inc.
Las Vegas Jerky’s is located at the Plaza Hotel and Casino, which is set to reopen at 9 a.m. on Thursday. Ninety-seven percent of its customer base are Hawaii residents. During the shutdown, it has had to move to online sales.
“We’ve been doing things through Facebook now. We’ve been advertising on Yelp. We’ve been doing a lot of phone orders from our house, working from home,” said Higa.
Meanwhile, other hotels in Downtown Las Vegas are already open. These include the Golden Nugget, the D, and Golden Gate Hotel and Casino.
On the strip, many hotels like Caesar’s Palace, the MGM Grand, the Bellagio, New York New York, The Venetian, and Wynn and Encore are opting to reopen later in the morning.
Other hotels like the Excalibur won’t open until June 11. According to the MGM website, there isn’t a date yet for when the Luxor will reopen.
“After going in and seeing how the casinos are handling the safety protocols and everything, I think it’s pretty safe. I feel pretty good going back to work,” said Higa.
Local travel agencies tell KHON they’re waiting for more hotels and activities to reopen in Las Vegas and for more direct flights to start up again before they start promoting Las Vegas vacation packages.
As for businesses returning to normal in Las Vegas, Higa said it may take some time.
“I think once they lift that 14-day quarantine going back to Hawaii, then I think we’ll start to see more people coming in,” said Higa. “And when vacations Hawaii starts again we’ll see more people coming in.”
