Paul Szydelko
Citing the synergy created by Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas tourism officials are optimistic about 2022.
Business forecasters gathered on the floor of the 65,000-seat stadium on Jan. 18 for Preview Las Vegas, an annual event sponsored by Vegas Chamber, the chamber of commerce for Clark County. More than 1,000 attended to hear mostly positive insights about what the year will bring.
The stadium, which officially opened during the early months of the pandemic, attracted more than 1 million guests to NFL and college football games, concerts and other events during the last six months of 2021. An estimated 400,000 of those would likely not have come to the city if not for events held at stadium, according to Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
"If you walk through Mandalay Bay or Caesars Palace or the Bellagio prior to a game or a concert, there's an energy," Hill said, according to a report in the Las Vegas Sun. "It's making a huge difference. If this stadium had not been built, it would be a different day-to-day for this community. This stadium works."
With the NFL's Las Vegas Raiders completing their first season with fans in attendance (no spectators were allowed during the 2020-21 season) and the continued success of the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights, speculation has grown about other major league sports franchises that could find their way to the city. Rumors have heated up that the NBA, Major League Baseball (the Oakland Athletics in particular) and Major League Soccer are considering Vegas.
Big events on the calendar for 2022
The city and the Golden Knights will be hosting the NHL's All-Star Weekend for the first time next month at T-Mobile Arena, culminating with the All-Star Game itself on Feb. 5.
The NFL Draft will be held in Las Vegas April 28 to 30, and the NFL recently announced Allegiant Stadium will host the city's first Super Bowl in 2024.
"Those teams, leagues and events want to be here," said Hill. "People are seeing the financial opportunity, and they're investing here. It's the first place they're turning. It's a hard position for a city to get into, but it's a real opportunity for the business community here."
Las Vegas learned recently about another high-profile event coming to the city, one it was not anticipating.
The
2022 Grammy Awards, after a postponement from its original date of Jan.
31, are moving from Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena (formerly the Staples
Center) to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3.
Organizers said there were "too many risks" producing the show in
January because of rising Covid-19 cases.
Convention comeback
Although attendance at CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) this month at the Las Vegas Convention Center was down more than 75% from its peak in pre-pandemic 2020, officials at Preview Las Vegas were certain that the convention and meetings industry will return to their customary high levels before too long.
"Conventions are going to be coming back stronger, and international tourism is going to be coming back, as well," Vegas Chamber president Mary Beth Sewald said. "Things bode well for a great economy and a great outlook for 2022."
Brian Gordon, a principal with Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas-based economic research firm, told KNPR that the city steadily got to a better place in 2021.
"Think back to where we were 22 months ago. That was a scary day," Gordon said. "We're in a much better position than we were nearly two years ago. We've seen a lot of strong recovery in terms of the job market [and] visitor volumes. We're seeing things come back."
The national economy, however, gives Gordon cause for concern.
"Clearly, a national recession would be a death blow to the Las Vegas tourism industry as we are just now coming off this latest cycle," Gordon told the radio station.