A slight drop in July tourism numbers and a 15% decrease in gaming revenue in Las Vegas aren’t slowing expectations for a strong Labor Day weekend.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority released figures that project 331,000 visitors this weekend, a 3.4% increase over the 320,000 a year ago. Those visitors are projected to spend $417.4 million, a 12.7% increase over the $370.4 million over Labor Day 2023.
Hotels are expected to be 92% filled, up from 88.8% a year ago.
The LVCVA reported 3.51 million visitors came to Las Vegas in July, a 0.4% decrease from 3.52 million. The decline in convention business during the month is primarily to blame; it fell 6.9% to 251,600, including the absence of the AWFS Fair that drew 16,000 people a year ago.
Drive-in customers dropped 2% year over year and traffic along the Nevada and California border was flat. Total air-passenger volume through Harry Reid International Airport, however, was up 2.3% and marked the fourth highest month in history.
Overall hotel occupancy reached 83.7% in July (minus 1.5% year over year), as weekend occupancy reached 93.2%, up 0.6 points. Midweek occupancy came in at 79.8%, down 2.4 points. Average daily room rates and revenue per available room decreased 1.8% and 3.6%, respectively.
The 15% drop in Las Vegas Strip gaming revenue in July raised questions on the surface Thursday about what’s happening with tourism and spending, but only briefly. Analysts noted that a big part of that was a steep decline in baccarat hold.
Strip baccarat win totaled $64 million and was down $126.2 million or 66.4%. Volume totaled $727.4 million down 8.5% or $67.4 million and hold was 8.8% versus 23.9%.
The results were also impacted by two less weekend days than July 2023.
“Overall headline, the July results were soft, but influenced by the calendar and hold, with normalized/mass market Strip results flattish, while locals and downtown were solid,” said Truist Securities analyst Barry Jonas.
“One month does not make a trend,” said Brendan Bussmann, a casino consultant and managing partner of B Global. “There’s no reason to think things are going in one direction or another. The locals market is up, which shows how strong that is. It was just a soft baccarat month and we have to see about August and heading into the rest of the year.”
Bussmann said flat visitation isn’t indicative of anything either. A lot of times, it depends on what’s on the event calendar. “A lot of this is when holidays exist and where it can move the needle just enough where there’s an increase,” Bussmann said.
Downtown Las Vegas recorded $71.8 million in revenue, a nearly 10% increase from $65.4 million a year ago. Locals casinos generated $279.7 million in revenue in July, a 13.1% increase from $247.3 million a year ago.
Jonas credited the opening of Durango Casino & Resort for some of the strength in the locals market, with gaming revenue up 13% year over year under the balance of Clark County category, including 19% in July.
Harry Reid International Airport handled five million passengers in July, a 2.3% increase over the 4.94 million passengers in July 2023.
Domestic travel rose 2.9%, while international travel was flat year over year, possibly owing to foreign visitors traveling to the Olympics in Paris instead.
October 2023 set the record with 5.47 million passengers. That was followed by 5.21 million in May and 5.06 million in June. July now holds the No. 4 spot.
