You’re close, but a week or two off.
In Las Vegas, the week between Christmas and New Year’s, rather than being one of the slowest, is the busiest of the year, culminating in New Year’s Eve, the most teeming night of them all, the mother of all crowds, with 300,000 or so people in town to celebrate the changing of the calendar.
Conversely, the couple weeks before Christmas are, traditionally, the deadest of the year. In times past, the entire four-week stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas was slowest. But that was before the National Finals Rodeo invaded Las Vegas for 10 days in early December when the city hosts a huge country-and-western blowout. But over the 10 days to two weeks, depending on when NFR falls (this year it’s Dec.3-12) following NFR, you’ll have the place pretty much to yourself.
Traditionally as well, Las Vegas room rates also dropped precipitously during the height of the heat, July and August. Year after year in the Las Vegas Advisor, room rates in July, and often into August, were our number-one Top Ten Value; we called it Christmas in July. But with the advent of the family-friendlier Vegas, families discovered what a great bargain Las Vegas is in the summer, so these days, the city can get packed even when it’s 110 degrees in the shade.
Speaking of these days, due to the current economic climate, room rates have just completed a first-time-ever one-year cycle holding down the top spot in the Top Ten. The cost of the average Las Vegas hotel room is down a consistent 25%-35% across the board and it will be very interesting to see what we turn up when we conduct our big room-rate survey for the December Advisor in mid-November. Stay tuned.
