Paul Szydelko
Visitation to Las Vegas in March fell 7.8% from March 2024, the third straight month it has declined, and the city's tourism agency is anticipating less room tax revenue in its next budget as a result.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, in a report released April 29, noted March's decline followed an 11.9% drop in February -- although that month's double-digit plunge was perhaps a bit deceiving because Las Vegas hosted the Super Bowl in February 2024 and had an extra day due to the leap year. There was a much slighter dip in January, 1.1% compared with January of the previous year.
March, which saw the city welcome about 3.4 million visitors, had a "slightly less-packed event calendar and as-yet-unclear impacts of evolving federal policies ripping through international and domestic markets," wrote Kevin Bagger, director of the LVCVA Research Center, in a summary of the latest numbers.
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He noted, however, that convention attendance was up 10.2%, to 533,900, partly because of the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society conference (48,000 attendees), which was held elsewhere in 2024. The average daily room rate increased by 3.1%, to $183.86 a night.
For the first quarter of 2025, the LVCVA said visitor volume is down 6.9%, to 9.7 million, and convention attendance is down 1.6%, to 1.8 million, from the first quarter last year. In addition, ADR is down 8.1%, to $188.52 a night, and hotel occupancy is down 0.9 percentage points, to 81.8%.
Airport traffic down
Passenger traffic, both outgoing and incoming, at Harry Reid Airport fell by 3.9% in March from the same month in 2024, its second-straight monthly passenger decline. Among the reported declines were a 14.5% dip from Canada's WestJet, a 62.2% decrease from Flair and a 5.9% slip from Air Canada. Aeromexico also had a decrease of 17.9% from March 2024.
While it is too soon to know for certain whether Canadians and Mexicans are less inclined to visit the U.S. and specifically Las Vegas because of heated U.S. political rhetoric, pending tariffs or other reasons, that hasn't stopped the speculation and planning.
Reduced room tax revenue anticipated
Casino.org reported that Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst at research firm Applied Analysis, said in a presentation to the LVCVA board in March that diminishing foreign travel, particularly from Canada and Mexico, and flagging consumer confidence are likely to lead to reduced visitation.
That in turn will result in reduced room taxes earmarked for the LVCVA. The agency is projecting a 5% decline in room tax revenue when it discusses its upcoming budget this month, LVCVA president Steve Hill said in the Casino.org report.
The authority budgeted $360 million from room taxes for the fiscal year ending June 30. A 5% decrease would result in an $18 million drop.
Hill called the projection decrease a "conservative approach ... in recognition that there's some uproar," according to the Las Vegas Sun.
"I've said repeatedly that one month does not make a trend, although we do expect that this is the start of a decline in international visitation," Hill told the Sun. "At some level, the conversation around the tariffs has also alienated some of our potential visitors."