As the plane approached Las Vegas, I wondered if I would find things changed. After all, it’s only been two months since that horrific shooting when 58 fans attending an outdoor country and western concert at Mandalay Bay were gunned down.
Touching down in Las Vegas
The year before, I had gone reluctantly to a shooting range in Las Vegas, out of curiousity and to accompany couple of friends who wanted to check it off their bucket list of things to do. I was offered the ladies’ kit which included serious weaponry and several rounds of bullets but I said no.
As I watched my friends shoot, and other customers firing away, at targets which were cutouts of human figures (one in Muslim attire), I was traumatised, first by the noise – it’s incredibly loud and scary – and appalled by the fact that people could find this fun. At the end of it, we dismissed it as an experience not to be repeated.
When the shootout happened, I felt a sense of guilt that I had taken part in something that could be so deadly and somehow also closer to the tragedy because of what I had experienced firsthand at the firing range.
Walking around the strip though, it feels like nothing has changed although it does seem to be quieter on the streets and in malls. The Las Vegas Premium Outlets, frequented by tourists, seemed unusually quiet as well although there were certainly lots of shoppers, mainly from Asia, laden with their hauls.
My taxi driver who moved here from Ecuador 30 years ago says, “Life goes on, nothing has changed. It’s just a slow month.”
Tomorrow though, he says, “the cowboys are coming.” This is the annual rodeo convention which has, for the past three years I have attended the Expedia Partners Conference, been held at the same time.
He encourages me to go to the rodeo. “It’s only $15, quite cheap, but don’t buy anything. The cowboy stuff they sell is expensive.”
The only signs that serve as reminders of the shooting are billboards that carry the hashtag #VegasStrong and my room clock at Aria displays the same hashtag.
Bright lights on the Strip
My Ecuadorian driver is nostalgic for the early days of Vegas, days of the Rat Pack, and when people believed in “service, service, service.”
“Today, it’s all money, money, money and people go to casinos in shorts and T-shirts,” he says.
They also dress like Batman and Superman from the costumes I saw on the Strip. Christmas tunes are belting out everywhere and one staff, working at one of the stores at the Premium Outlets, said to me, “I read on AOL that Christmas songs can make you depressed.”
Well, they certainly can make you poorer as I watch my fellow shoppers from Asia go crazy on value-priced branded items.
Tomorrow, more than 4,000 delegates will attend the annual Expedia Partners Conference and I look forward to learning what this global travel giant has in store for 2018. One thing’s for certain – travel goes on no matter what happens.
And no, I don’t think I will go to the rodeo.
• Featured image credit: Kamaga/iStock-Getty Images