Average daily room rate in Las Vegas reaches all-time high

Southern Nevada’s tourism economy produced a record that delighted resort operators, but may make Las Vegas visitors cringe.

The average daily room rate — the average amount resort guests pay for a night in a hotel — rose 3.7 percent to $150.21 in January, the highest monthly average compiled by Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority researchers.

The LVCVA reported Tuesday that the rate topped the previous high of $146.53 recorded in April 2007.

The rate, routinely referred to in the industry as ADR, is the average rate reported by resorts to the LVCVA and does not include resort fees, taxes or parking charges.

Another indicator, revenue per available room, or RevPAR, calculates the ADR with the average occupancy rate. RevPAR for January was $128.73, up 3.7 percent from January 2016.

LVCVA researchers broke down January ADR to $163.72, up 3.8 percent from last year, at Strip properties and $74.59, up 2.1 percent, downtown.

Rates were high in January as a result of high demand created by large conventions, including CES, and the New Year’s holiday falling over a three-day weekend that included January dates.

Las Vegas visitation showed a slight increase, up 1.1 percent to 3.5 million in January. Convention attendance fell 4.1 percent to 736,003 for the month.

The month’s convention attendance was hurt because several shows that were in Las Vegas in 2016 rotated out to other cities this year. The National Association of Homebuilders (59,700 attendees) and the National Kitchen &Bath show (33,000) were in other cities.

The LVCVA visitation report followed a positive gaming win report issued earlier Tuesday by the state Gaming Control Board.

The state’s casinos delivered a 12 percent increase in gaming win in January and the $1.04 billion won was the highest since February 2013.

The board also reported that Clark County’s $926.2 million total was the 16th time casino win crossed the $900 million mark.

It was the 35th time the state has recorded more than $1 billion in win, a level first achieved in March 2005. The highest win ever came in October 2007 when the state recorded $1.165 billion.

Analysts cautioned that the January percentage increases were high because of the timing of reporting, but the three-month running average shows significant growth in casino win.

For November, December and January, state and Clark County win was up 2.5 percent from the comparable period in 2015-16, the Strip climbed 2.9 percent and downtown Las Vegas soared by 7 percent.

In Southern Nevada, only one market — Mesquite — showed a January decline, off 1.4 percent to $10.5 million.

In other Southern Nevada markets in January, the Strip was up 14.4 percent to $608.9 million, downtown soared 32.1 percent to $55.5 million, North Las Vegas was up 25.9 percent to $28.7 million and the Boulder Strip reported up 24.5 percent to $84.9 million.

Laughlin’s January win was up 4.8 percent to $44.1 million and the balance of the county was up 1.4 percent to $93.5 million.

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