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Erik Kabik / ErikKabik.comEric Trump hosts a party at Trump International Hotel and Tower on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, in Las Vegas.
By Robin Leach (contact)
Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014 | 2 a.m.
Real estate mogul Eric Trump, the son of Donald Trump, talked with us about the family expanding its company’s holdings in Las Vegas in an interview posted Wednesday.
Part 2 of our Q+A includes why Atlantic City is struggling and the possible return of The Donald’s Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants to Las Vegas.
So why did Atlantic City go so badly wrong? I know your hotels were sold there, but unfortunately they kept his name on them until your current lawsuit to remove it.
I lived in Atlantic City every weekend for half of my life growing up. I remember when they were being built, and I remember when we were operating them. We had the three most successful casinos arguably in the world. Then we sold out at an unbelievable time.
Atlantic City was doing a lot of things wrong. They built a bad convention center. There are a lot of bad areas in Atlantic City; the government wanted to do nothing about them. They didn’t want to clean up the city; there are a lot of corrupt politicians. They never diversified.
Listen, if you look at the gross revenue of Atlantic City right now, 72 percent of it is gaming. If you look at the gross revenue of Las Vegas, 35 percent of it is gaming, right?
What did Las Vegas do that Atlantic City didn’t? You built the best restaurants, you built the best shows, you have Red Rock Canyon, you have an unbelievable airport and the best convention facilities in the world. You have the family element and the business element.
Atlantic City never re-created itself. Under us, we had. I remember this as a kid. We had Michael Jackson there every weekend, we had Mike Tyson there every week, we had Evander Holyfield there; we had the best fighters in the world, we had UFC there.
But every chance they had to undermine Atlantic City, they did. They never built the airport right; there’s no airport. It’s crazy. They never took advantage of the train. I mean here you are, you’re within the largest population base in the country, and they never capitalized on it.
And the water, they have the ocean. What place in the world that’s sitting by the ocean doesn’t have a major competitive advantage? They blew it. My father was incredibly smart, and he recognized the flaws and sold out of the company. I think in a certain way, he’d love to get back in because he knows how much potential the place could have, and he remembers how well we did when we were there.
The people who operate the casinos there now, across the board, they really blew it, and it’s sad. It’s a place that I called home for a long time. Not truly my home address, but a place I spent a lot of time and have fond memories.
Is “Celebrity Apprentice” coming back again?
Yes, it is, this winter. The cast is not yet officially announced, but we’ve got some really good people. No Las Vegas people, though, this time. Obviously we had Penn Jillette on the last season, and that was amazing. We had a lot of people, including, by the way, Joan Rivers, who was an amazing woman. She was on with me quite a few times and was amazing.
Is it tough to fire those people? Is it tough to hear those words, “You’re fired”?
It’s an interesting dynamic with the celebrities because unlike the original “Apprentice,” these people have done so amazingly well in their careers. They’re so different in so many ways. One guy might have 500 home runs, and the next person might have been an anchor on CNN, and one might be a top comedian and another a major rock star.
They come from all walks of life, but they have all been successful in their own right and have great work ethics. It’s also interesting when inherently alpha people have to work together for the first time and not necessarily be the boss. In each of their respective careers, they were always that alpha boss who told everybody what to do.
Now all of a sudden they have to work as part of a team and get bossed around and do menial tasks. Some people rise above and some people the wheels simply fall off — and it just makes for great TV.
Fortunately I’m not the Trump who says, “You’re fired.” That’s Dad’s job. We provoke, maybe we do other things, but I think you can say those two words with immense respect. I think at the time when they’re fired, they understand what they did wrong. It’s never one of those things where it’s not obvious you should go. Normally the people recognize it.
The one thing that’s often talked about but is never the main feature is that “Celebrity Apprentice” has raised tens of tens of tens of millions of dollars all around the country, all around the world. The philanthropy aspect of it, similar to what we’re doing tonight for St. Jude’s, is incredible.
You have these guys who will not only put their charities in many cases on the radar, get amazing attention to their charity, bring their cause to life, but also raise hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars while also in some cases reinventing themselves.
You look at Joan Rivers. She said before “Celebrity Apprentice” that her calendar book was empty. She even said this in her documentary that just came out: “ ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ really put me back on the radar; I didn’t have a free day after ‘Celebrity Apprentice’.” She became an honest comedian again. Look at Piers Morgan; same thing. He took over Larry King’s spot at CNN. He solely credited that back to “Celebrity Apprentice.”
You own Miss USA and Miss Universe. Do you think you’ll ever bring the pageants back to Las Vegas?
I think absolutely. I think Las Vegas is a natural for it. We’ve had it here many times; it’s great, people love it. Our contestants love this building. I think Florida is really exciting with our new Doral. We put $250 million, almost $300 million, into this project in 18 months and created the No. 1 resort in Florida.
To have the Miss Universe Pageant there in January is really kind of a special thing for the company. South Florida is an amazing market, especially with the Spanish influence. So many of the great Miss Universe winners have been Venezuelan, Colombian and Argentinian.
South America just has an amazing affinity with beautiful women but also chooses so many great winners for the past decade or longer. I think it’s a great testament to the show to have it there, but it will definitely be back in Las Vegas. This is a city we love, and it’s a great venue for it.
Before we wrap this, to me it’s interesting that you chose to build in Las Vegas but wanted an apartment hotel and not a casino.
One of the things we spend a lot of time focusing on so effectively is our concierge program. It’s kind of funny, when we came into this property, we didn’t want to do the casino. We have our casino licenses in every state; it’s something that we do immensely well. We wanted to do something different.
We wanted a casino with true white glove service where a guest walks in the door and it’s “Hello, Mr. X, welcome back to the Trump International Hotel.” The service component is something that’s hard to do in a casino. It’s hard to do when you’ve got 6,000 rooms and you hear the ding, ding, ding of slot machines. You cannot remember everybody’s name in a large casino.
You see people walking around with beer helmets; we wanted to create something very different than that. We wanted to create an oasis off the strip where people come back to the hotel and say, “Wow, I’m at home. I’m at an unbelievable hotel with great service and unbelievably beautiful rooms.” It’s worked out remarkably well. People really like the business model here.
So luxury is back despite the economic hard times the country’s gone through, but is it bigger and better? Or are we getting it back that way?
I don’t think luxury ever left, even during the downturn. We operated the hotels with the same luxury standards as we do now. Maybe the world was suffering a little bit, but at the high end it actually almost insulates you because the people who really want to live a serious quality of life, maybe their portfolio went down by a couple percent, but they still have the available funds to buy.
It might be slower, you might not have the same velocity, but people still don’t want to sacrifice quality of life. They want to live the good life, they want to aspire to live the good life. For us, we’re really selling Trump is as much a lifestyle as it is a physical product. So I don’t think luxury ever disappeared.
I think in terms of luxury, it’s a never-ending game to chase it and be ahead of it. I think it’s one of the things we’ve made a career of. We travel all around the world, we stay in great properties, and we’re always taking back things and implementing them in our properties so we’re always ahead of the curve and people are always trying to play catch-up to us. It’s something my father has done remarkably well, and it’s something that we do remarkably well.
And you carry the Trump name with pride?
Tremendous pride. Tremendous pride. We have a lot of fun with it. You know at the end of the day, the name is our biggest asset. It is absolutely our most valuable asset. I can’t tell you, I mean every day I see 30 deals that come across my desk that are in the four-star space or three-star space that would probably make a lot of money, and we have zero interest.
We turn every single one of them down, and we only go after the best assets and the best locations with the best management teams. You have to have the best physical product, you have to have the best operational capacity of teams. When you combine the two, really that white glove service with the amazing luxury, you really have something special, and I think we do it better than anybody.
Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.
Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.
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