Last-minute Strip rooms still available as F1 starts

Hotel room rates on the Strip are some of the lowest they’ve been for last-minute travelers to the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Rooms and suites had been set to eyebrow-raising prices since many became available in November 2022. But in recent weeks, prices fell as much as 75 percent since their peaks, catching the eye of some observers who fear demand is not as high as expected for the inaugural racing event taking over the resort corridor. One writer for the Messenger Sports went viral for sharing his story about his $18 hotel room on Wednesday night at the Flamingo.

But as that story noted, room rates were still several hundred dollars per night as the race week went on. Resort prices remain dynamic and can still fluctuate with demand.

The average price of a Las Vegas Strip room available on hotels.com, according to a Friday morning survey of 47 resorts on hotels.com, was about $593, not including taxes and resort fees.

Rates were as low as $49 nightly at Circus Circus and as high as $2,600 per night at Wynn and Encore. Most Caesars Entertainment properties — the main operator within F1’s 3.8-mile circuit — range from $294 per night at Harrah’s to $799 per night at Caesars Palace. The eponymous hotel’s room prices were set at $1,519 per night in November 2022.

Other rooms were available outside of the track area for several hundred dollars per night. On the north Strip, The Mirage was $459 per night, and some rooms were available in the Hilton tower at Resorts World for at least $499 per night — though the more luxurious towers, Conrad and Crockfords, were sold out, according to the hotel’s booking website.

One reason prices may have held up for some of the north Strip’s properties is because of their targeted customer base. In Wynn Resorts’ third quarter earnings call on Nov. 9, CEO Craig Billings said his properties were not seeing demand or rates fall because of the clientele served.

“I’ve heard on a couple of our competitors’ calls commentary around expectations coming down within the market,” Billings said to investors. “I will tell you that our expectations for F1 haven’t changed one bit because, as you rightly pointed out, we knew that it was our customer base that would be at that event from the beginning.”

On the South Strip, where MGM Resorts International operates several value-driven and four-star hotel options, MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay were both $499. More luxurious options like Park MGM and Delano were $799 and $899, respectively, while the family-oriented Excalibur was $199 and Luxor was $249.

A long line of taxis queued outside both domestic and international terminals at Harry Reid International Airport on Friday morning. Security lines were light Friday for outbound flights.

Airport officials previously said they expected the bulk of inbound commercial travelers to arrive Wednesday and Thursday, with as many as 98,000 travelers leaving the Las Vegas airport on Sunday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

McKenna Ross is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact her at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.