Las Vegas records 8.6 percent increase in January visitors

By Amanda Finnegan

Thursday, March 10, 2011 | 11:54 a.m.

Some of Las Vegas’ largest annual conventions helped to drive a visitor volume increase of 8.6 percent in January over the previous year, according to numbers released today by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The number of visitors increased to 3.13 million in January from 2.87 million January 2010. The LVCVA noted that attendance at the Consumer Electronics Show increased from 126,000 in 2010 to 140,000 in 2011, plus a handful of other tradeshows fell in January this year rather than February.

Those shows included Winter Market at the World Market Center and World of Concrete, which each had 50,000 attendees. The Surfaces show had 18,000 in attendance.

Overall, convention attendance increased nearly 37 percent from 449,917 to 615,854 during the year-over-year period. Las Vegas hosted an estimated 1,200 meetings during the month of January, according to the LVCVA.

Citywide hotel occupancy increased from 71 percent in January 2010 to 79 percent this past January. The average daily room rate increased 7.9 percent from about $100 to $107.

Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport increased by 5 percent from last January, but vehicle traffic on Interstate 15 at the Nevada/California state line decreased 0.4 percent.

Visitor volume to Laughlin dropped 0.2 percent from January 2010 to January 2011 while Mesquite saw an increase of 1.6 percent.