Wednesday, March 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
More than 29.6 million visitors spent $22.5 billion in the Las Vegas area in 1996, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority reported.
Visitor volume was up just 2.2 percent from 1995, the LVCVA said, but spending on rooms, entertainment, shopping and gambling jumped 8.9 percent.
With Clark County gaming win up a meager 1.1 percent to $5.8 billion for the year, the LVCVA figures indicated tourists spent $16.7 billion on non-gaming activities.
The numbers accentuate the changing spending habits of a growing, affluent tourist base increasingly attracted as much by Las Vegas' rooms, food and entertainment as by its gaming.
LVCVA market researcher Terrence Jacinsky predicted an 8 percent jump in total visitor volume for 1997, to 32 million, including 3.7 million conventioneers and 28.3 million tourists.
The increase should help occupancy rates continue to climb for the Las Vegas area's 101,106 hotel and motel rooms, which totaled just 76,879 at year-end 1991. Since then, hotel occupancy rates have jumped from 85.2 percent to 93.4 percent in 1996, while motel occupancy rose from 62.6 percent to 75.7 percent.
The total number of passengers transiting McCarran International Airport last year rose 8.7 percent, to 30.5 million, following increases of 4.4 percent and 19.4 percent in the prior two years.
Traffic on the four principal highways serving Las Vegas climbed 1.5 percent, to 59,777 vehicles a day, Jacinsky said.
Laughlin visitor volume slipped 1.9 percent, to 4.7 million in 1996, following a 0.3 percent decline in 1995. The Colorado River resort area's gaming revenue fell 4.9 percent in 1996, the third straight year of declines.
Laughlin has been affected by competition from new Las Vegas resorts and gaming on Native American lands in Arizona.
The figures were reported Tuesday to the LVCVA, which also approved spending $75,800 to sponsor a reception at the Visit USA trade show in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a rapidly growing market that generated $28.3 million in non-gaming spending by 56,000 Brazilians who visited Las Vegas last year.
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