Number of Las Vegas visitors rises in April

Kevin Rademacher

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 | 11:12 a.m.

On the heels of a strong National Association of Broadcasters convention and publicity surrounding opening of Wynn Las Vegas, visitor volume in April reached 3.29 million, up 1.5 percent from the same 2004 month, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said Monday.

Also continuing to rise was the average daily room rate at Las Vegas resorts. For April the average rate was $107.26, up 15.7 percent from $92.67 in April 2004. The surge follows a first-quarter 2005 increase of 13.2 percent over the same year-ago period.

Occupancy levels, however, were down 0.7 percent overall at 93.3 percent. Midweek occupancy levels of 90.9 percent were off 1.2 percent from the same 2004 month. Weekend occupancy levels were down 0.2 percent from April 2004.

UNLV economist Keith Schwer said that trade off between occupancy rates and room rates was not unexpected after a strong first-quarter for occupancy levels.

"It would be a profitable opportunity to pick up a little bit on the price side," said Schwer who also is the director of UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research.

Convention attendance in April was 517,955, up nearly 18 percent from the 440,822 in April 2004.

Nationwide, Schwer said the travel and tourism industry has performed better than the country's economic average, and that's good news in the Las Vegas Valley.

"We have a lot of that in our economy, so we are doing better than the national economy," he said.

Visitor volume to Laughlin hit 354,639 in April, down 5.3 percent from the 374,626 reported in the same 2004 month. The occupancy rate in Laughlin also fell 3.2 percent to 84.7 percent.