Las Vegas had its best monthly visitor numbers since February 2020 in April but has a long way to go to catch up with the 2019 numbers, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Thursday.
An estimated 2.57 million tourists visited the city in April – the second consecutive month that the number of visitors exceeded 2 million.
That is 2,307.7 percent more than a year ago, but still 27.3 percent below the April 2019 figures.
In the first four months of 2021 there were 7.638 million visitors, 10.3 percent fewer than April 2020 and 44.8 percent fewer than 2019. The occupancy rate for the previous year is 48.7 percent, 4.8 percentage points less than in 2020 and 39.7 points less than 2019.
Part of the drop in attendance is due to the closure of the convention and exhibition industry in March 2020 to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The city won’t see any significant surge in convention attendance until June, when the World of Concrete Show takes place in the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
“The hotel occupancy rose to 65.6 percent, an increase of 10.1 points compared to the previous month, with the weekend occupancy improving to 83.5 percent, an increase of 5.8 percent compared to the previous month and within 13 points compared to the level dated April 2019, ”said Kevin Bagger, vice president of the LVCVA research center.
“The load in the middle of the week also rose to 57.9 percent, an increase of 10.1 points compared to the previous month, but a decrease of 31 points compared to April 2019,” he said.
Las Vegas has shown steady strides in hotel room occupancy since January.
A steady increase in casino capacity since March has resulted in an increased number of customers in resorts with all properties that are scheduled to be 100 percent occupied on Tuesday. Visitor confidence is also increasing as more and more people get the coronavirus vaccination.
Another important indicator, room rates, is slowly recovering.
An average price of $ 109.36 per night is 9.2 percent above the average of $ 100.11 in March, 80.8 percent above the price of $ 60.50 in April 2020, and 16.1 percent below the price of $ 130.40 per night in April 2019.
Not every tourism indicator was weak.
As the Nevada Gaming Control Board reported Thursday, game winnings in Clark County rose 7 percent from April 2019 to $ 865.5 million.
Traffic on the major highways to Las Vegas is also increasing.
The average number of vehicles on all major motorways per day – 136,234 – rose 7.2 percent from March, 140.3 percent from April 2020 and 8.3 percent from April 2019.
The number of vehicles crossing from California to Nevada on Interstate 15, an average of 50,656 per day, is 10.4 percent more than in March, 196.5 percent more than in April 2020 and 8.3 percent more than in April 2019 .
The Nevada Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the census, admits that some of the traffic may be locals, not tourists.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.
