Las Vegas is the place for bargain seekers

Travel's a virtual bargain these days.

A gallon of gasoline runs about $1.50 less than it did a year ago, and a typical domestic plane ticket cost about 20 percent less in the early summer than it cost a year earlier, according to numbers from travel-booking Web site Bing.com.

But tourism projections for the long Fourth of July weekend that begins today show the price breaks haven't exactly overwhelmed consumers.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority expects a holiday weekend visitor volume of 284,000, the same number the bureau expected a year ago. And travel club AAA expects an increase of 1.2 percent in the number of Mountain West residents who will travel 50 miles or more over the weekend, with 2.5 million people in the region planning to take to the roads or skies for a leisure trip. That's better than the 1.9 percent decrease expected nationally, but it's positively anemic if you consider the cheaper cost of traveling this year over last, said Michael Geeser, a spokesman for AAA.

"The numbers tell us people are not ready to break out and travel yet, because they are still not confident that their personal financial situation or the economy in general will come back," Geeser said.

What's more, when visitors arrive here, they'll spend less than they spent in 2008.

The visitors authority forecasts a nongaming economic impact this weekend of $163.2 million, 10.2 percent less than 2008's $181.8 million.

Tourists interviewed Thursday afternoon at Caesars Palace backed up the research, saying they planned to rein in discretionary spending while here for the holiday.

Manuel and Martha Martinez will drop perhaps three-quarters of their usual budget on their July Fourth stay on the Strip.

The San Antonio couple visit Las Vegas every July Fourth for their anniversary -- this year is their ninth -- and Manuel Martinez says he's just a little more worried than normal about the future. His job with the San Antonio City Water Board is relatively secure, but "you never know what could happen," he said.

Budget issues were also top-of-mind for Carol Hamblin and Bill Mussina, a couple from Erie, Pa.

Hamblin, who was last in Las Vegas a little more than two years ago, said she and her boyfriend wouldn't even have made the trip if they hadn't gotten deals for free hotel rooms at Paris Las Vegas and The Orleans for every evening of their four-night stay.

The free rooms mean a little breathing room on other expenses. Between them, the couple might spend close to $300 a day, though they plan to take in some less-expensive activities such as downtown sightseeing and free shows, Hamblin said.

Room rates at local resorts indicate more bargains in the market.

Numbers from Vegas.com, a Henderson-based travel Web site, show an average room rate of $94.63 a night for Friday and Saturday, a 15.3 percent drop from $111.01 for the same period in 2008, when the country also observed the Fourth of July on a Friday.

Bryan Allison, vice president of marketing for Vegas.com, said room rates dropped noticeably in the past two weeks as hotel operators saw less demand than they hoped for.

"Hotels are doing what they've been doing all year -- cutting rates to get more people into their rooms," Allison said. "We do see more orders coming through (Vegas.com), so the strategy of cutting room rates does seem to be working in terms of driving visitation."

The visitors authority predicted weekend occupancy of 90 percent, down from 92.3 percent a year earlier, though the market does have 4,241 more rooms than it had a year ago thanks to new resorts such as Encore at Wynn Las Vegas and M Resort.

"I talk to a lot of people from other destinations in the tourism economy, and they would love to have our numbers," Allison said. "I think, for the foreseeable future, Las Vegas remains a great value."

Allison said he expects the deals to stick around, with lower room rates as well as food-and-beverage credits and bargains on show tickets.

"From a consumer standpoint, it's a great time, but the city is going to have to continue to provide those great values and ride this thing out," he said.

He expects less spending on retail and entertainment as consumers keep a lid on discretionary spending in coming months.

But not everybody is cutting back.

Ronny and Carol Jonas of Ottawa flew to Las Vegas Thursday to spend the weekend celebrating their 13th anniversary. The husband and wife own a concrete-repair business, and they last visited the Strip in January for the World of Concrete trade show. Cost hasn't been much of a factor in any of their trip planning, Ronny Jonas said. They expect to see a show every night they're here, and within an hour of arriving, they'd already lined up tickets to see impressionist Terry Fator at The Mirage and comedian Jeff Dunham at Caesars Palace.

"Compared to prices from January to now, we got a good deal," Ronny Jonas said. "Everything has been reasonable."

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Review-Journal reporter Ben Spillman contributed to this report.