Record number of tourists came to Las Vegas in March, officials say

Sam Morris / Las Vegas News Bureau

Attendees are shown at the CONEXPO-CON/AGG trade show Tuesday, March 7, 2017, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

By Chris Kudialis

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 | 7:20 p.m.

With over 3.7 million visitors last month, the Las Vegas Valley welcomed a record number of tourists for the month of March, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Last month’s tally represents an increase of 1.4 percent in number of tourists from March 2016. It fell less than 50,000 visitors short of the Las Vegas record monthly high of 3,827,636 from July 2016, spokeswoman Maria Phelan said. The next highest visitor totals for the month of March have come over the previous three years.

Phelan credited the record numbers to the return of the triennial ConExpo-Con/Agg trade show, a construction convention that welcomed over 130,000 industry professionals to the valley from March 4-9. Total convention attendance for the month was nearly 758,000, a jump of 13.3 percent from last March, and 19 percent from February 2017.

More than 4.2 million passengers traveled through McCarran International Airport last month, according to an authority release, and Clark County generated $857.4 million in gaming revenue for the month.

Both Laughlin and Mesquite, two neighboring areas also tracked by the authority, saw increases in tourism for March as well. Laughlin’s visitor count of 178,421 was an increase of 1.2 percent from last March and 14.8 percent jump from February 2017. Mesquite’s 138,779 tourists represented a 4 percent increase from March 2016 and a 25.5 percent increase from February 2017.