How Has the Mass Shooting Affected Las Vegas Tourism?

With all of the media stories after the horrible shooting incident at the outdoor concert, how has it affected Las Vegas visitation, air traffic at McCarran Airport, and business at the Mandalay Bay?

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting nearly 11 weeks ago, local pundits and gambling and tourism authorities predicted that the violence wouldn’t have a long-lasting impact on visitor volume in Las Vegas.

On the other hand, MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and the Tropicana all announced that they’d sustained above average cancellations even several weeks later. Noticeably, the cancellations were entirely from leisure travelers; no business groups altered their plans.

MGM seems to be taking it the hardest, especially at Mandalay Bay. In mid-November, MRI CEO Jim Murren announced that non-group cancellations were a little more than double the average and the company expects its fourth-quarter Strip revenues to decrease “in the low to mid-single-digit percentage points” (we assume that means somewhere between 2% and 6%).

Also, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported some layoffs in the front-desk, bell, and guest-services departments at MBay.

As for total number of visitors in October, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority's "Executive Summary of Tourism Indicators" for the month, most statistics in the leisure category were down. Visitor volume was down 4.2% from October 2016 (from 3,762,420 down to 3,604,306); that drove the number of year-to-date visitors down 1.4% through October. Year over year, total room nights occupied was down 4%, Strip gaming revenues were down 6.1%, and average daily auto traffic at the Nevada-California border was down 1.6%.

One indicator that was up was at McCarran International: The airport actually set a new one-month record for arrivals and departures at a little more than 4.3 million passengers. (With a couple weeks to go in the year, the airport is on a pace to break its all-time annual record, set in 2007, of just under 48 million passengers.) We attribute this, in part, to convention attendance, which was up a whopping 35.9%, from 505,603 attendees in October 2016 to 687,209 in October 2017.

Of course, the November numbers will give us a little more long-term look at the aftermath. However, as we saw in yesterday's Question of the Day in which we posted the analysis of our own poll, we believe it's possible that there will be a lasting effect. How big that effect is and how long-lasting remain to be seen.

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Comments

taxman Dec-10-2017

Mandalay Bay Cancellations

Not surprising about the cancellations.  Hotel dropped the security ball with respect to the shooter.  How did he manage to get the guns, ammo, and equipment past security?

Roy Furukawa Dec-10-2017

Mbay

I disagree with Richard in that how he got his things to his room. He’s a known face on a long stay, came from self parking and easily could’ve taken it up piecemeal without alarming anyone. More vigilance is needed, but this could’ve happened at any hotel just like the shooting could’ve happened in any city.

Ray Dec-10-2017

Cancellations

Really? This is still the short term. And there is one thing that this country is good for. Over-reacting knee-jerk reactions. Give it a little time, and as long as there are no more major incidents, things will go back to normal. Even most of the people that said they won't come back will be back. Run this survey in a year and ask how many of you that normally come at least once a year did not come. And by that time you might have new year-to-year statistics about visitors.

Question of the Day - 10 December 2017

Comments