Travel to Las Vegas down 5% in April

Las Vegas showed its fourth straight monthly decline in visitation in April, although some economic indicators — average daily room rate and the number of people driving to Las Vegas — held their own, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Wednesday.

The LVCVA reported 3.3 million visitors for the month. The organization’s research director, Kevin Bagger, indicated a healthy boost in convention attendance prevented visitation counts from being worse.

“With a strong convention segment and events including Wrestlemania, counterbalanced by consumer uncertainty with evolving federal policies, visitation saw a net year-over-year decrease of 5.1 percent,” Bagger said in prepared remarks.

Passenger volume at Harry Reid International Airport was down for the third straight month with 4.7 million passengers, a 3.6 percent decline from April 2024. Domestic and international traffic was affected during the month with passenger counts down for three of the city’s top five commercial air carriers — Southwest and United (both down less than 1 percent) and discounter Spirit Airlines (off 26.8 percent).

International arrivals and departures were down 3.4 percent in April to 310,969. In the closely watched Canadian market, the top two air carriers, Air Canada and discounter Westjet, were down by double-digit percentages for the month.

Some travel analysts have said Canadians will boycott the United States as a result of new federal government policies and President Donald Trump’s remarks about Canada someday becoming the 51st U.S. state.

For the first four months of 2025, Spirit traffic is down 24 percent and Southwest at 3.6 percent.

While airport passenger counts are down, more people are taking advantage of less expensive gasoline and driving to Southern Nevada.

The LVCVA, using data provided by the Nevada Department of Transportation, said traffic on major highways to Las Vegas was up 5.4 percent to an estimated 139,666 average daily vehicles, with traffic at the California-Nevada border on Interstate 15 up 7.7 percent to 44,023 vehicles a day. The Department of Transportation does not differentiate tourist traffic from local traffic.

Greater convention traffic

Bagger said convention visitation picked up by 13.9 percent to 573,600 in April, thanks, in part, to three shows rotating to Southern Nevada that weren’t here last year — the International Sign Expo (21,000 attendees), the American Urological Association (15,000) and the Carwash Show (10,000). April also was the month for the National Association of Broadcasters, one of the city’s largest trade shows.

Occupancy rates and the average daily room rate were mixed.

Hotel occupancy was down 1 percentage point to 84.5 percent, with weekend occupancy up 0.4 points to 93.8 percent, but midweek occupancy down 1.4 points to 81.2 percent.

The average daily room rate trended higher in April with the Strip rate averaging $203.17 (up 4.4 percent from a year ago) and downtown Las Vegas averaging $100.87 (up 4.5 percent from April 2024).

Meanwhile, gaming win continued its downward drift in April with most of the state’s 20 monitored markets flat against last year’s numbers, the Nevada Gaming Control Board reported earlier Wednesday.

Gaming win down

The state’s gaming win was down 0.5 percent at $1.23 billion while Strip win was off 2.9 percent to $646.9 million with downtown Las Vegas win up 1 percent to $83.6 million.

Only two markets had double-digit percentage swings from a year ago — Wendover, up 10.9 percent and North Lake Tahoe, down 18.4 percent.

For the first 10 months of the 2024-25 fiscal year, statewide gaming win was down 1.1 percent to $13 billion, with Clark County down 1.3 percent to $11.3 billion. Within the county, Strip win is off 3.3 percent to $7.3 billion, but downtown Las Vegas was up 2.7 percent to $794.2 million.

A Wall Street analyst said the state’s monthly numbers benefited from the shift in the Easter weekend from March in 2024 to April this year, even though the number of weekend days was unchanged.

Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli also noted baccarat hold was down from normal averages, but slot handle was up.

Shelley Newell, senior economic analyst for the Control Board, said markets overall were “stable and consistent” and April represented the 50th consecutive month that the state has recorded more than $1 billion in monthly gaming win.

The amount of percentage fee gaming taxes also was flat. Taxes collected as of Friday totaled $66 million, bringing the 10-month total for the fiscal year to $911.2 million, down 0.07 percent from 2024.

The state collects up to 6.75 percent of gross gaming revenue in taxes for the state’s general fund.

This year, state coffers also will benefit from an additional $24.5 million in fines assessed by the Nevada Gaming Commission over the past three months in disciplinary actions taken against Resorts World Las Vegas, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts Ltd.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.