Number of Las Vegas visitors up slightly in February

By Andrea Domanick

Tuesday, March 31, 2015 | 7:41 p.m.

Las Vegas welcomed nearly 3.2 million visitors in February, up about 1 percent from the year before, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Tuesday.

That growth comes in part due to a jump in convention attendance, despite a decline in the overall number of events for the month. Approximately 550,000 people attended conventions in February, up 12.1 percent from the same month last year.

The increase brings visitation for the first two months of 2015 to 6,552,282 people, up .5 percent from the first two months of 2014. Gains in small and mid-size meetings as well as the larger World of Concrete Expo — which brought about 55,000 attendees — helped balance the loss of larger tradeshows like the National Association of Home Builders, which was scheduled for January instead of February this year.

The jump in visitors helped boost the average daily room rate 3 percent year-over-year to $116.48. The average rate for the first two months of the year was $126.57, up 9.4 percent from the same period in 2014. Downtown’s room rates didn’t fare as well, falling 14.2 percent from the year before to $57.74.

Despite growth in visitation, February’s citywide occupancy numbers were down slightly to 84.7 percent, continuing a trend for the new year.

Gaming revenue also fell, down 1.7 percent in Clark County to $796.9 million and 4.4 percent on the Strip to $531.3 million, a shift the LVCVA attributed in part to lower baccarat activity.

But growth in transportation numbers helped bolster an overall strong year-over-year showing for February. As reported by McCarran International Airport last week, passenger traffic climbed 2.9 percent to 3.2 million visitors. Auto traffic was also on the rise, jumping 8.1 percent to 99,517 daily vehicles on Southern Nevada’s major highways, including a 7.4 increase to 39,820 daily vehicles on I-15 between Las Vegas and Southern California.

Beyond Las Vegas, visitor volume in Laughlin fell 4 percent from February 2014, while visitation numbers in Mesquite grew by 2.2 percent during the same period.

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