Question of the Day - 03 November 2024

A source close to the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority tells us that the figure reflects a combination of those staying in hotels, as well as those staying with friends or relatives and pass-through or day trippers. Many of the answers also can be found in the agency’s Tourism Tracker. Basically, the 42 million figure is reached by extrapolating from 2024 trends through the first three quarters of 2024 and projecting them out to encompass a full year.

The LVCVA has used a visitation model for decades, in which it estimates visitors in commercial lodging by multiplying proprietary occupancy data according to available rooms. This is then divided by average length of stay and multiplied by travel party size, derived from the Authority’s annual Visitor Profile study.

For instance, visitation in 2024 stands through August at 28 million. That's a 3.1 percent increase over the first eight months of last year, or 27, 172,400. Over the first eight months, air travel is up 2.8%, daily auto traffic is microscopically higher (0.2%), and traffic on the California border at I-15 is down 1.1%.

In all of last year, Las Vegas attracted 41 million visitors, down from the 42.5 million in 2019 and the record 42.9 million who arrived in 2016. But the number continues to climb -- from 19 million in 2020 due to COVID and 38.8 million in 2022 -- and so far in 2024, we're on a pace to get very close to the 2019 count. If that percentage increase holds for the remainder of the year, aided by Formula 1, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve, total visitors will come in at 42.3 million, just a couple of hundred thousand short of pre-pandemic. 

The decrease after more than four years continues to be pegged to international travel. In 2023, visitors from Canada and Mexico were down a mere 4% and 3%, respectively, but our North American neighbors make up only half of international arrivals. Visitors from the UK were down 26% in 2023 and fewer travelers arrived from the next seven-highest countries. Conventioneers are also lower than previously; in 2023, six million attended trade events here, compared to 6.6 million in 2019.

Here are some further figures that have more to do with revenue than visitor volume, but also come into play in the total algorithm. 

Hotel occupancy has remained absolutely flat over the previous year, 0% difference. Interestingly, although hotel-room inventory is only incrementally smaller (down 0.8 percent), you’re getting socked a lot harder for your stay. The average daily rate of $189.04 is 6.1% loftier and it’s even more so on the Strip, where a room night will set you back $201.64 or 6.3% more than last year. Room rates downtown averaged $101.92, higher by 2.5%.

Not surprisingly, Las Vegas revenue per available room (known as RevPAR in the trade) is way up, 6.1% or as much as $158.23. On the Strip, it escalated by 6.5% to $174.62. Downtown hotels are reaping $71.34 a night in RevPAR, a 4.4 percent hop. Room nights occupied may be only two percent up, but that hasn’t stopped the resorts from capitalizing on such demand as there is.

Casinos, though, were not invited to the party. Through August, gross gambling revenue in Clark County was up 1.1 percent and it was almost the same downtown. The Boulder Strip is struggling a bit, down 3%. The Strip’s casinos are all but flat, up just 0.1 percent, probably thanks to the house getting its clock cleaned at baccarat.