Las Vegas is Ideally Located for Dominant Millennials

The old adage of “location, location, location” applies favorably to Las Vegas when it comes to capturing the highly coveted Millennials visitation and gaming market.

The Las Vegas Valley has a sizeable Millennial population density among the 2.2 million people living in it, and Las Vegas ranks eighth among top 10 cities in the U.S., according to Nielsen market studies of U.S. cities.

The UNLV Center for Gaming Research’s Oliver Lovat cites Nielsen in his recently published study on Millennials entitled: Elvis Who? Understanding, Attracting and Retaining the Next Generation of Las Vegas Customers.

Among U.S. cities ranked based on concentrations of Millennial-generation residents, Nielsen indicates eight of the top 10 are located within a three-hour flight of McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, with a ninth only a short distance more. Five of those cities are only two hours or less by plane.

The flights times are most relevant among Millennials, whom Lovat says “’have lived their entire lives in the jet age and love the idea of traveling … In fact, four in 10 Millennials have taken a trip abroad at some point in the past three years.’”

The primary driver of travel among Millennials is to attend an entertainment event, such as a concert or for a special occasion, such as a birthday, with price and travel convenience being significant influencers of their travel decisions, Lovat reports.

The Millennials market is important because it is poised to dominant the 21^st century for longer and in greater numbers like no other generation has dominated before, and possibly unlike any generations to come.

The Pew Research Center defines Millennials as people who were ages 18 through 34 as of 2015, with the U.S. containing some 74.6 million Millennials among its more than 320 million citizens.

As of 2015, Millennials are the nation’s most populous age group, with decreasing numbers of Baby Boomers between ages 51-69 ranking second at 74.9 million, according to the Pew Research Center.

Pew expects the Millennials population to continue growing until reaching a peak of 81 million in 2036 and gradually tailing off to about 75 million in 2050.

By comparison, Baby Boomers and Generation X are set to cross paths at 65 million in 2028, followed by a steep decline to about 16 million Baby Boomers left in the nation by 2050, according to Pew. Generation X should tail off to about 50 million by 2050, with a steep decline likely expected afterward.

That leaves the 21^st century largely dominated by Millennials, who likely will remain the largest population base in the nation for the better part of the century.

Generation X, although never having been the most populous generation in the U.S., will continue to exercise a significant influence and impact in Las Vegas and the gaming industry for at least a couple more decades, though.

With Millennials poised to dominate the next several decades with their growing numbers, earnings, and buying power, Las Vegas casino operators and marketers are increasing their focus on events designed to keep hotel rooms full and casino floors busy.

Citing Nielson, Lovat’s study indicates the top U.S. city, with 16 percent of its population of more than 885,000 comprised of Millennials, is Austin, Texas, which is three hours away by Las Vegas by plane. Its Millennial density indicates Austin has more than 141,000 Millennial-age residents.

San Diego, with 1.36 million residents, and Salt Lake City, 191,180 residents, tie for second in the nation in Millennial population density at 15 percent each, Lovat reported.

San Diego and its more than 200,000 Millennials is only 90 minutes from Las Vegas, while Salt Lake City and its nearly 30,000 Millennials is located only 70 minutes away by plane. Each is only a few hours’ drive away, too.

Located only 45 minutes from Las Vegas by air, Los Angeles is the nation’s second-largest city with some 3.97 million residents and has a 14 percent Millennial density. That means there’s about 531,000 Millennials less than an hour from Las Vegas by plane and about four hours by car, according to Lovat and Nielsen.

Another Texas city, Houston, is just three hours and 10 minutes away from Las Vegas by plane, making it roughly the same flight time as Austin.

Houston is the nation’s fourth-largest city, with nearly 2.3 million residents – 14 percent of which are Millennials. That equals more than 321,000 Millennials in Houston.

Dallas, the nation’s ninth most-populous municipality with about 1.3 million people, has more than 180,000 Millennials, ranking it 10^th in the nation in Millennial population density. Dallas is about 160 minutes from Las Vegas by air, according to Lovat and Nielsen.

Another high-population city, San Francisco, ranks 13 in the nation in population density with nearly 865,000 residents, and it ranks ninth on Lovat’s list. Its more than 121,000 Millennials are about a 90-minute plane ride from San Francisco.

The remaining top ten high-density Millennials cities each have 14 percent population densities of residents between ages 18 and 34. Of them, only Washington DC is a long plane ride away at five hours, and several are among the nation’s largest municipalities.

Denver is about a 110-minute plane ride from Las Vegas, and its more than 682,000 residents include some 95,500 Millennials.

The concentrations of Millennials in so many cities located a short plane ride from Las Vegas bodes well for its near-future of the city, as its top gaming and hotel operators gradually switch their marketing focus to Millennials.

The clearly defined locales, abundance of Millennial-age population and available demographics information provide the kind of information marketers need to target Millennials via comprehensive marketing campaigns.

Following through with more in-depth marketing studies, including polling, surveys, focus groups and exit interviews, among other research tools, can help to quantify current marketing efforts and illustrate what works and what needs to be adjusted.

Making necessary changes to marketing strategies and tactics based upon insights elicited via quantitative and qualitative studies of Millennial-age visitors to Las Vegas should prove highly fruitful and cost-effective, as the city continues its pace of constant change in order to remain the world’s entertainment capital and the nation’s most-visited city.