Strip posts strong Memorial Day visitor numbers

Lisa Snedeker

Wednesday, May 30, 2001 | 10:18 a.m.

While a record number of visitors descended on the Las Vegas Strip over Memorial Day weekend, growth in the number of tourists flocking to the glittering megaresorts has slowed down, industry experts say.

The projected number of 274,000 visitors was up from 270,000 for Memorial Day weekend 2000, a 1.5 percent increase, said a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Comparatively, in 1999, approximately 248,000 visitors came to gamble, dine and shop over the three-day holiday at a nearly 9 percent rate of growth. Actual figures from the hotel-casinos will not be available for about a month.

"The destination is constantly evolving, so the past several years we have achieved greater visitation on key weekends," said Kevin Bagger, senior research analyst for the visitors authority. "But every year is different because we have a different dynamic."

For the first three months in 2001, the overall number of visitors was up .8 percent, according to visitors authority figures. That's compared to 2000, when the city saw a nearly 9 percent increase in visitors during the same time period.

"We have forecasted a slower growth rate than last year, but it's still a growth rate," Bagger said.

The slowdown is being attributed to the lack of new hotel-casino openings compared to last two years when four new megaresorts opened on the Strip.

Bagger noted that the LVCVA doesn't rank holidays because of the changing dynamics including the ever-increasing number of hotel accommodations. For example, last Memorial Day there were more than 121,000 hotel rooms compared to 124,000 this year.

The visitors authority estimated that tourists spent more than $183 million in non-gaming revenue over the holiday weekend. That's up 16 percent over 2000, which saw $158 million.

An estimated 450,000 passengers traveled through McCarran International Airport beginning Thursday before the holiday, airport spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said.

"Our numbers were up slightly just like the overall traffic numbers," she said.

If the biggest hotel-casino operator in Las Vegas had "no vacancy" signs, it would have hung them out over the weekend.

"We found demand for weekend was really strong," said Jenn Michaels, spokeswoman for MGM MIRAGE, which owns the MGM Grand, Bellagio, New York-New York, Mirage and Treasure Island hotel-casinos among others.

"There was no impact from rumors of a slowing economy and increased gas prices," she said. "We found people who make plans to travel for holiday weekends don't tend to let anything affect those plans."