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Visitor volume rises again in March
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Foodies sample food and wine during Vegas Uncork'd on Friday at Caesars Palace. Hundreds attended the annual event, sponsored by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. » Buy this photo
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: May 12, 2010 | 8:42 a.m.
Visitor volume to Las Vegas continued to grow in March, but local travel and tourism officials remain cautious about pronouncing an end to the city's leisure-sector downturn.
Las Vegas welcomed 3.22 million tourists in the month, up 0.7 percent from March 2009, according to new numbers from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. It's the seventh straight month of increased or flat visitor volumes, following a 15-month string of declines that began in May 2008.
Year to date through March, visitor counts are up 1.5 percent, to 8.96 million people, compared with 8.83 million travelers in the same three months of 2009.
"I think we're seeing some movement in a positive direction, and looking at March numbers compared to February numbers, we do see a few more positive year-over-year changes," said Kris Tibbs, the authority's research manager. "But the broader economy still faces some challenges, such as a higher unemployment rate and lower consumer confidence."
Brian Gordon, a principal in local research and consulting firm Applied Analysis, said the new numbers are welcome, but they don't tell a tale of full recovery.
"We have more room inventory than we had previously, so companies are still struggling to keep pace with where they were (at the peak), and consumers overall are spending less," Gordon said. "It's a positive sign that we still have more than 3 million visitors coming to Las Vegas during March, but it's too early to suggest that conditions are back to where they were before the recession."
Gordon said he'd need to see noticeable jumps in both visitor volume and consumer spending before he would conclude that the market had turned a corner. He added that he expects visitor counts to stay in a "relatively tight range" through 2010. An uptick in leisure travel on weekends and holidays, as well as a boost in business travel, could force upward movement in room rates by the end of the year, he said.
March's gains also benefit from comparison to the low numbers posted during a severe economic downturn. Despite the improvements, visitor numbers have stayed well below prerecession levels. In March 2007, for example, the market attracted 3.45 million tourists -- 230,000 more travelers than the city hosted in March 2010.
Through 2010, Las Vegas will attract 37.4 million visitors, according to authority forecasts. That tally would bring the city back to 2008 tourism levels.
The latest numbers also continue to show the effect CityCenter is having on the market's occupancy levels.
The marketwide room-occupancy rate was 82.4 percent in March, down from 85.9 percent a year earlier. But thanks to CityCenter, the market's room count jumped to 148,891 units, up 5.5 percent from 141,119 rooms in March 2009.
Tibbs called the occupancy results "fairly encouraging." Even with the addition of nearly 8,000 rooms, the market's year-to-date occupancy rate of 77.7 percent is well above the U.S. average of 51.9 percent.
The average daily room rate in March was $93.23, up from $92.46 in March 2009.
Convention attendance increased to 470,005 participants, up 5.2 percent from 446,588 people a year earlier. Based on feedback from resort operators, strong advance convention bookings in late 2010 and 2011 should make for "strong" attendance numbers going forward, Tibbs said.
Average daily car traffic into Las Vegas also surged 6.1 percent year over year in March, Tibbs noted. It's the 12th straight month of auto-traffic gains.
Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.
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Ron Jeremy and the entire adult industry are in a free fall - Today at UNLV, I saw a guy stop in the Student Union with a box full of adult business cards. He took out hand fulls of the business cards from clubs with the free limo offer. As soon as he walked six feet westward, an attractive student that looked as if she could have been a former stripper grabbed each bundle and threw the business cards in the garbage can next to her table. Must of been hundreds - I am hundreds of dollars in those laminated limo cards from the clubs - And she tossed all the guys efforts in seconds. I couldn't help but laugh at her throwing away all that cash, but there was some pity that followed, because the nightclubs in Las Vegas are screwed. People seem to hate them, especially the starving students who have exploited by the industry in Vegas for semester going on semester. Hundreds of dollars in time, effort, and advertising, tossed away as if it were used toilet paper in about three seconds. This economy will never recover. People are just too pissed at what they have been apart of, especially when students are facing budget cuts.
Thomas Chi
Author Book
John Ensign's Extramarital Mistress in Sin City
Obama not to blane fool.
LOCALS ARE BEING SOUGHT OUT NOW MORE THAN EVER!
WE NEED YOUR MONEY!
STAY HERE, PLAY HERE!
THAT'LL TEACH'EM TO PISS OFF THE LOCALS!
STAY AWAY FROM THE STRIP UNLESS THE DEALS SO GOOD, OR IT'S COMPED!
LET'EM COMP LOCALS LIKE THE OLD DAYS AND MAKE IT REALLY FUN!!!
NEVER WALK AWAY FROM YOUR BREAD AND BUTTER!!!!