LOS ANGELES, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Mandalay Bay hotel of Las Vegas will eliminate its 32nd floor by the end of this week, from where gunman Stephen Paddock rained bullets on ground in October last year, killing 58 and wounding more than 500 others.
According to the report of Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper Friday, Mandalay Bay will renumber floors 31 through 34 as floors 56 through 59, while room 32135 where Paddock stayed would never be opened to guests.
The 43-story hotel has confused floor numbering system even before. The top four floors were listed as 60 to 63, meanwhile, since floors 35 to 39 are used by Four Seasons Las Vegas as a hotel within a hotel, main elevators showed stops at floors 1 through 34 and 60 through 63.
Michael McCall, a hospitality professor at Michigan State University, was quoted by the report as saying that what the hotel wants to do is move on from the tragedy and service customers without ignoring but without calling attention to it.
Michelle Paul, a psychology professor of University of Nevada, Las Vegas, also said renumbering the floors makes sense, as it helps set the stage for guests and employees to relate in a new way to the location of the tragedy.
After the shooting, the worst in modern U.S. history, the hotel closed the 32nd floor for a long time and reopened it at the beginning of the year.
The shooting also prompted questions about whether MGM Resort, owner of the Mandalay Bay, would change the hotel's name. McCall said the company probably needs more time to monitor the effect on business.
