Las Vegas tourism numbers continue steady climb

Tourists pose in front of the iconic Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign Tuesday, March 6, 2012.

VEGAS INC coverage

Southern Nevada’s tourism numbers continued to climb in February, aided by the return of some conventions and trade shows, calendar shifts that landed shows in that month and an extra day courtesy of Leap Year.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority on Tuesday reported 3.1 million visitors to Southern Nevada in February, a 6.4 percent increase over February 2011. More importantly, citywide hotel occupancy and average daily room rates were up, as was gaming revenue, reported earlier in the day by the state Gaming Control Board.

Convention attendance and the number of conventions held were up by double-digit percentages.

LVCVA officials said a 23.2 percent increase in attendance to 564,923 was the result of two large conventions moving their meeting dates from January and March to February. The World Market Center’s semiannual event, drawing 50,000 people, met last year in January, while the International Wireless Communications Expo, which brought 10,700 people to the city, moved to February after meeting last year in March.

Two other big shows returned to Las Vegas after meeting in other cities in previous years. The National Auto Dealers Association, with 22,900 attendees, hadn’t met in Las Vegas since 2007, while the Safari Club and its 20,900 delegates was last here in 2002.

Having an extra day in the month also helped, but visitation would have been up even without a 29th day in February. Based on the city attracting an average 105,860 people a day during the month, visitation would have been up about 2.8 percent if there had been just 28 days.

February was the 24th straight month of percentage increases in visitors and average daily room rates over the same month a year prior.

In February, average room rates climbed 10.5 percent to $108.80 a night. Citywide occupancy was up 1.1 percentage points to 81.7 percent after falling fractionally in January.

Weekend occupancy hit 90.8 percent for the month, up 1.3 percentage points from February 2011. But motel occupancy languished, down 8.3 percentage points to 47.6 percent, the lowest it has been since December when it was 40 percent.

Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport in February was up 6.6 percent but also was skewed by the extra day in the month.

Average daily auto traffic was particularly strong on Interstate 15 at the California-Nevada border, up 6.1 percent to 37,996 vehicles. The average daily traffic on all major highways in Southern Nevada was up 0.7 percent to 93,969 vehicles.

Gaming revenue for Clark County was up 5.5 percent to $812.1 million, with the Boulder Strip and downtown Las Vegas showing double-digit percentage increases. The state said the Boulder Strip win was up 22.9 percent to $71.7 million and downtown was up 13.7 percent to $45 million. Gaming revenue on the Las Vegas Strip climbed 3.3 percent to $530.7 million.

The three-month average for gaming win in Clark County — often considered a more reliable trending gauge because it removes most of the volatile reporting date comparisons that occur month to month — shows gaming win up 9.5 percent for the county, 11.7 percent on the Strip, 6.4 percent downtown and 8.5 percent on the Boulder Strip.

While most of the LVCVA’s visitor volume news was good for Southern Nevada, Laughlin continues to be hammered by tribal casino competition in Southern California and Arizona.

Laughlin reported visitor volume down 11.8 percent to 170,344 in February, convention attendance down 29.4 percent to 3,566 and occupancy down 9.9 percentage points to 60 percent. While most of the indicators were down, the average daily room rate was up 2.7 percent to $40.52 for the month.

Visitor volume in Mesquite was up 3.3 percent to 85,226, but occupancy was off 7.3 percentage points to 78.5 percent. The average daily room rate was flat at $54.63 a night. Gross gaming revenue was up 2.6 percent to $11 million.

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