We started with Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority spokesman Jeremy Handel, who told us, "That is not something that we track. We get information from the hotels about their occupancy, but [it's] a blended rate for the whole weekend. The only thing we have for New Year's Eve is our projected visitation figures, which are: 314,000 visitors [or] 98% occupancy," for a total of $192.6 million worth of non-gambling economic impact. "All of these stats are specific to New Year's Eve and not the entire weekend," Handel adds.
Arik Knowles, vice president of hotel operations at the Tropicana Las Vegas estimates that 20% of the Trop’s guests will check out on New Year’s Day, "based on our history and current pricing," with 'the lion’s share" of departing guests following on Jan. 2. A rival hotel operator pegged the checkout figure at 29%, noting that it might be higher if New Year's fell on a weekday. The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino anticipates approximately 700 checkouts on Jan. 1 – a 51% clip. "On New Year's Day, we will have almost 50% of our rooms scheduled to depart," adds Station Casinos spokeswoman Lori Nelson.
MGM Resorts International tracks check-out numbers but spokeswoman Yvette Monet says, "I couldn’t possibly estimate the amount of people who will check out on Sunday … based on past guest volume trending for holiday weekends, we probably are likely to see more checkouts on Monday because guests (especially drive-in) usually decide to stay for the entire holiday weekend." That’s certainly the case at Venetian and Palazzo. A representative for Las Vegas Sands projects a 20% checkout rate at Palazzo and 25% at Venetian.
So, the operators polled are reporting an average departure rate of over 32%. That extrapolates to 104,000 people leaving Vegas on New Year’s Day alone. If you’re thinking of going to the airport or taking a spin on the interstate to celebrate Jan. 1, we have one word of advice: Don’t. For good measure, you might want to stay put until you have to go back to work on Jan. 3.
