The Washington Post - 07.03.2020

SATURDAy, MARCH 7 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A

no. In t he food court, the only sign of coronavirus fears was an over- size jug of hand sanitizer next to the register at a Vietnamese res- taurant. on the gambling floor, one slots player out of dozens wore a face mask. At blackjack and baccarat t ables, players sat as close to one another as ever, fid- dling with chips that had been handled by countless others that day. Ye t some were staying away. maryland poker pro Andrew Brokos, an author and host of the podcast “Thinking Poker,” said he was focusing on his coaching business and finishing his latest book. “I actually have not been going to casinos,” he said. “By the time we’re hearing about confirmed cases in the area, it’s too late.” An mGm spokeswoman de- clined to comment on the outbreak’s impact on business but said the casino had placed addi- tional hand sanitizer dispensing stations in high-traffic areas, among other cleaning protocols. The White House conversa- tions about tax relief for hospitality firms raise questions about whether the president might di- rectly benefit. Trump’s company — which he still owns but is run by his sons — owns and operates hotels in Washington, Chicago and Las Vegas, plus the mar-a- L ago Club in South florida and a vineyard in Northern Virginia. The company also owns 11 golf courses in the United States and three golf resorts in Europe. Like Hilton, marriott and other big- name hotel companies — which mostly manage but do not own hotels — the Trump organization also operates properties under the Trump brand for other own- ers in Hawaii, New York and Vancouver. Since Trump’s election, his politics have taken a toll on the business, with the “Trump” name being removed from hotels in New York, rio de Janeiro, To ronto and Panama, as well as from a number of residential buildings in New York. The Trump organization is now looking to sell its D.C. hotel business. The company did not respond to questions about how the outbreak has affected its business and any actions it has taken in response. [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because fear and uncertainty are driving consumer behavior and keeping people at home. “It has a 9/11-like feel,” South- west Airlines chief executive Gary Kelly said Thursday on CNBC. He also said that “9/11 wasn’t an economically driven issue for travel. It was more fear, quite frankly, and I think that that’s really what’s manifested this time.” This week, the International Air Transport Association warned that the outbreak could cost airlines as much as $113 billion in lost revenue. The U.S. Travel Association forecasts that international travel to the United States will decline 6 percent over the next three months — the largest drop-off since the 2008 financial crisis. The sector’s grim outlook comes as coronavirus cases sur- pass 100,000 worldwide and deaths number in the thousands. The United States announced its 14 th fatality friday, and maryland joined states with confirmed new cases. meanwhile, health officials have w arned against travel to China, Iran, Italy and South Korea, and the Centers for Dis- ease Control and Prevention has advised heightened precautions for those traveling to Japan. While there are no restrictions on domestic travel — and basic habits like hand-washing remain among the best defenses against the flulike virus — the outbreak has sent global markets into near- hysteria. The Dow Jones transportation average careened into a bear market this week, meaning these stocks have fallen more than 20 percent from their recent highs. United Airlines and American Airlines stocks are both down about 40 percent this year, while Delta Air Lines has shed more than 20 percent. In addition to helping sectors like hospitality and airlines, the White House is considering aid- ing people unable to work because they are forced to stay home, as well as small businesses that may need some “cash flow” help amid the outbreak, Kudlow said.

Hotel chains are struggling with
vacancies in Asia and are bracing
for similar waves in the United
States. Business travel is falling,
and trade shows, music festivals
and conventions are being can-
celed from San francisco to Chi-
cago to Austin to miami. families
and college students are recon-
sidering spring break excursions
and distant summer plans.
other countries have already
enacted tax relief for their hard-
est-hit industries. on Sunday, Ita-
ly announced a tax credit for any
company that has seen revenue
decline by more than a quarter.
That i s on top of Italy’s a nnounce-
ment last month that companies
and individuals in areas affected
by the “epidemiological emergen-
cy” would be granted an exten-
sion on spring tax filings.
It’s not clear how U.S. relief
would be administered or wheth-
er President Trump’s own hotels
could be beneficiaries. Adminis-
tration officials also disagree on
the extent to which some of these
measures could be undertaken
without Congress.
on friday, White House eco-
nomic adviser Larry Kudlow con-
firmed that the administration is
considering “timely and target-
ed” federal interventions to help
workers, businesses and indus-
tries most vulnerable economi-
cally to the outbreak.
“Perhaps on a large scale, some
of the sectors might need some
temporary assistance,” Kudlow
said on fox Business, adding, “We
don’t want to act prematurely.”
His comments were the admin-
istration’s most definitive public
acknowledgment yet that U.S.
companies have been hurt by the
coronavirus.
Speaking on CNBC, Kudlow
specifically pointed to airlines,
saying they are “in trouble in
some of their numbers.” But he
stressed that the White House
was not concerned about wide-
spread economic damage, a stark
contrast to most independent
economists and investors who see
growing risk of a recession.
many travel experts and indus-
try executives are comparing the
current industry upheaval to that

tourIsm from A

Airlines and hotels face

big losses as travel slows

its bottom line by as much as $50 million if the outbreak lasts several months. And Hyatt said its hotels in Singapore, Bali and Japan saw bookings fall as Chi- nese travelers stayed home. At San francisco’s moscone Center, the city’s largest conven- tion and exhibition complex, at least seven groups — including facebook and IBm — have canceled or rescheduled for total economic losses of about $138 million, according to Laurie Armstrong Gossy of the San francisco Travel Association. Airport hotels in particular are seeing a dip in bookings, said Jan freitag, senior vice president of lodging insights at the data firm STr, especially those with a lot of international traffic. And there’s some indication that people are canceling weekend bookings, suggesting that leisure travel could be pulling back more than corporate travel. But freitag said that if people want to travel, they’ll do it. He pointed to high occupancy rates at New orleans hotels during mardi Gras, where travelers come in very close contact with one another. “one week does not a trend make,” freitag said. In suburban maryland, it seemed like business as usual at the mGm National Harbor casi-

Debra Adams, 57, is counting down to April 19, the start of her 27-day cruise across the Atlantic and through Europe. She regular- ly checks for bulletins from Prin- cess Cruises that may threaten her trip, but she says she and her 81-year-old father are determined to go. Adams said she sees no reason to sit and home and worry when she has this “opportunity to live.” “right before we get off the ship, my dad and I spend a day in Paris,” she said. “It’s going to be amazing. I’m going to go until they tell me I can’t.” Glenn Wilcox has been fielding questions from anxious callers looking to rearrange European vacations or finagle flights to avoid certain airports. His company, Wilcox Travel, books trips for leisure travelers and humani- tarian aid groups. Wilcox esti- mates that future bookings are down 20 to 30 percent compared with last year. “We’ve had constant questions,” he said. “It’s a hard thing. What I’m telling folks is that we can only go off of what travel restrictions there are.” As people cancel flights, they ditch hotel reservations too. marriott said in an earnings call that revenue from bookings in China plunged in february. Hilton esti- mates that coronavirus will affect

Kudlow didn’t specify what types of assistance the govern- ment could offer. Legislation Trump signed friday to address the outbreak allows for up to $7 billion in low-interest loans for small businesses from the Small Business Administration. Travel and tourism accounted for 5.9 million U.S. jobs in 2018, including positions in lodging, dining and transportation. The sector accounted for 2.9 percent of the economy in 2018, federal data shows. Cruise prices are beginning to fall after two high-profile quaran- tines. on the Diamond Princess, more than 700 people were in- fected and seven have died, and now the Grand Princess is being held off the coast of California as passengers await test results. Because cruises are generally booked months in advance, it’s hard to predict how many people will cancel summer plans, said mike Driscoll, editor in chief of Cruise Week. f ewer Americans take cruises to Asia compared with Europe or elsewhere, so the long-term impact on the industry depends heavily on where the outbreak takes hold. “The potential is so worrisome for the cruise business,” Driscoll said. “It depends on what happens in the Caribbean. It d epends on what happens in mexico.”

MELINA MARA/THE WASHINGTON POST A transportation security Administration officer wears a mask at oakland International Airport in California on Wednesday. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, business travel and tourism are declining.

W hile explaining this, Trump appeared irritated by the reaction of a reporter. “You’re smiling when I say that. Where are you from?” he asked. When she replied CNN, the president snapped: “I don’t watch CNN. That’s why I don’t recognize you. I don’t watch CNN because CNN is fake news.” The medical professionals around him smiled uncomfortably. The president had a more positive reaction to fox News. While explaining he had watched the network’s coronavirus coverage aboard Air force one en route from Nashville — where he had toured tornado damage earlier in the day — to Atlanta, Trump cut himself off. “How was the show last night?” Trump asked a fox reporter in the room, referring to a fox News-produced, town-hall- style event in Scranton, Pa., that he had participated in the night before. “Did it get good ratings?” Trump said. The reporter said he didn’t know. “oh, really?” Trump continued. “I heard it broke all ratings records. But maybe that’s wrong. That’s what they told me.” A s his aides did their best to curry Trump’s favor — they praised his leadership and sought to reinforce some of his pronouncements — the president opined on the falling stock markets, insisting he is happy that Americans are canceling travel plans abroad to “stay in the United States and spend money in the United States.” Though his CDC trip had been canceled over a coronavirus scare at the agency — before being reinstated after the employee tested negative — Trump boasted that he was taking no special precautions while touring the labs. “Not at all,” he said. “I’m not a person who has been big on handshaking. They used to make fun of me. But as a politician, you walk in and the doctors have their hands out, ‘Hello, sir.’ That’s my business. I never thought I’d be a politician. But I feel very secure.” [email protected]

summer in which he had pressured Ukraine’s president to launch an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son. “The tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect, the transcription was perfect, right?” Trump said. “This was not as perfect as that, but pretty good.” T rump argued that the death rate in the United States — 15 Americans have died of the virus, though Trump said 11 — remains artificially high because many people who have the illness are not reporting to hospitals because their symptoms are minor. While experts have said that is probably true, the argument seemed to undercut Trump’s efforts to minimize the scope of the crisis.

tested. for the president, the reporters’ follow-up questions about the rate of coronavirus testing were a nuisance. CDC Director robert redfield and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar stressed that the administration had authorized tens of thousands of testing kits to be distributed. But as Azar sought to parry with a reporter by calling on redfield to back him up, Trump, without looking at Azar, raised his right hand and waved him off. redfield said the agency had sent out 75,000 kits. Then Trump jumped in: “A nybody who wants a test will get a test, that’s the bottom line.” A few moments later, he jokingly compared the situation to his phone call last

where they are,” Trump said. “I don’t need the numbers to double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.” He had been furious last month upon learning that Americans in China with coronavirus were flown back to the United States in a decision made by the State Department without consulting him. Asked if a decision had been made about the latest ship’s fate, Trump appeared uncertain. “Uh, that’s a good question,” he responded. He later said he authorized his aides to decide — and Pence announced at a news briefing in Washington shortly after the president concluded his remarks that the ship would, in fact, be directed to a noncommercial port where everyone on board would be

virus than he was in bolstering his own status in a campaign year. Trump repeatedly sought to judge his administration’s performance by the numbers of how many have been shown to have contracted the virus and comparing it with other nations — and, in doing so, appeared to be making judgments based solely on that scorecard. He declared he would prefer to keep the thousands of passengers and crew on the cruise ship off the California coast aboard the vessel rather than bring them ashore for quarantine, though he acknowledged that Vice President Pence and other top aides were arguing for the ship to be brought to port. “I like the numbers being

President Trump
likes to say that
he fell into
politics almost
by accident, and
on friday, as he
sought to calm a
nation gripped with fears over
coronavirus, he suggested he
would have thrived in another
profession — medical expert.
“I like this stuff. I really get it,”
Trump boasted to reporters
during a tour of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
in Atlanta, where he met with
actual doctors and scientists who
are feverishly scrambling to
contain and combat the deadly
illness. Citing a “great, super-
genius uncle” who taught at mIT,
Trump professed that it must run
in the family genes.
“People are really surprised I
understand this stuff,” he said.
“Every one of these doctors said,
‘How do you know so much
about this?’ maybe I have a
natural ability.”
But for members of the
general public alarmed by more
than 300 diagnosed cases in the
United States — including at
least 21 that his administration
announced friday were
discovered on a cruise ship off
the San francisco coast —
Trump’s performance during an
impromptu 45-minute news
conference at CDC was not
necessarily reassuring.
Sporting his trademark red
2020 campaign hat with the
slogan “Keep America Great,” the
president repeatedly second-
guessed and waved off the actual
medical professionals standing
next to him. He attacked his
Democratic rivals — including
calling Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee a “snake” for criticizing his
response — and chided a CNN
reporter for smiling and called
her network “fake news.”
And he described coronavirus
testing kits — which his
administration has been
criticized for being slow to
distribute — as “beautiful” and
said they were as “perfect” as his
Ukraine phone call last summer
that led him to be impeached.
The upshot was that the self-
proclaimed medical savant came
off looking less interested in his
administration’s unsteady efforts
to mitigate the spread of the

On CDC tour, Trump plays medical expert by second-guessing the professionals

White House
Debrief

DAVID
NAKAMURA

JIM WATSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES President trump, flanked by t op health officials, holds a picture of the coronavirus during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on Friday. trump second-guessed and waved off medical professionals at an impromptu news conference at CDC.

The Washington Post - 07.03.2020

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