Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Tourism industry can close book on dismal ‘08 figures

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has wrapped up its 2008 tourism statistics, a report most industry leaders may prefer to lock away in an underground vault so that it never again sees the light of day.

Filled with negative numbers, the report paints a portrait of what the nation’s dismal economy has done to Southern Nevada’s leading industry: Visitor volume is down 4.4 percent to 37.5 million, occupancy rates are down 4.4 percentage points to 86 percent and the average daily room rate is off 9.8 percent to $119.19.

Authority officials blamed last year’s performance on the combination of the housing crisis, frozen credit markets, volatile fuel prices and increased unemployment causing reduced consumer confidence and less spending for travel.

The state Gaming Control Board reported the gaming win for December and, like the tourism report, it was flooded with negative numbers.

The state operates over a fiscal year, but when combining the last six months of the 2007-08 fiscal year with the first six of 2008-09, the gaming win had its steepest percentage decline in history.

Frank Streshley, senior financial analyst for the Control Board, said the decline is the longest in the 53 years of recording the gaming win. The current slump is in its 12th month, while the post-9/11 decline lasted five months.

Clark County’s gaming win was $771.8 million, down 18.4 percent from the same month a year earlier. The Strip’s win was down 23.2 percent to $474.2 million.

Other Southern Nevada submarkets were also down. Downtown Las Vegas’ win was off 17.5 percent to $41.3 million, the Boulder strip was off 9.2 percent to $76.3 million, Laughlin fell 18 percent to $37.4 million and Mesquite was down 25.1 percent to $10 million.

North Las Vegas was the only submarket statewide in positive ground, up 21.8 percent to $32.3 million. That was because of the opening in November of Aliante Station. The fact that the Boulder strip had only a single-digit percentage decline was likely because of the summer opening of the Eastside Cannery.

Northern Nevada had the two worst submarkets. North Lake Tahoe was down a whopping 30.4 percent to $2.7 million while South Lake Tahoe fell 29 percent to a $17.3 million win.

The December tourism numbers were generally in line with the state’s gaming figures. Visitor volume plunged 10.9 percent to 3 million — 2008’s worst monthly percentage decline — while Las Vegas’ occupancy fell 9.9 percentage points to 73.3 percent, also the worst of the year.

December’s average daily room rate was off 14.2 percent to $96.39, the first time in 2008 that the rate dipped below $100.

The average daily room rate and occupancy levels in 2008 were at record highs a year earlier.

Other key tourism indicators also were down.

Convention attendance for December was off 4.7 percent to 123,588, easily the worst month of the year — as December is traditionally. For the year, convention traffic fell 5 percent to 5.9 million.

The number of meetings held was down 16.7 percent in December to 1,071. For the year, it was off 5.8 percent to 22,454.

December’s average daily auto traffic fell 2.5 percent to 80,736 vehicles a day on all major highways and 1.3 percent to 38,586 vehicles on Interstate 15 at the Nevada-California border. For the year, traffic was down 5.3 percent on I-15 and other major highways.

Only one key indicator increased in 2008 — and it portends an even greater challenge for the city. Room inventory is up 5.7 percent to 140,529 rooms, meaning local officials will have to drive even more visitors to Las Vegas to strengthen occupancy and room rates.

The new rooms were a result of openings of the Palazzo and Wynn Encore as well as Aliante Station and Eastside Cannery. In addition, South Point on Las Vegas Boulevard South opened a new tower in the summer, adding about 1,000 rooms to the inventory.

As difficult as Las Vegas’ tourism woes have been, times are even harder in Mesquite and Laughlin, which also are marketed by the convention authority.

December’s visitor volume was down 35.7 percent to 78,475 in Mesquite and down 12.2 percent to 178,283 in Laughlin. It was the first time this year volume fell below 200,000 in Laughlin and only the second time this year that it was below 100,000 in Mesquite.

For the year, visitor volume was off 10.5 percent to 1.4 million in Mesquite and 7.6 percent to 2.9 million in Laughlin.

For 2008, Mesquite’s hotel occupancy rate fell 6.8 percentage points to 78.3 percent and Laughlin’s fell 2.8 percentage points to 69 percent. The average daily room rate plunged 33 percent to $53.19 in Mesquite while it was up 2.7 percent to $43.04 in Laughlin.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy