Visitor numbers at local resorts continued to surge in June, albeit not at pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Thursday.
It was the sixth month in a row with improved visitor numbers. Most of the key tourism indicators were better than the May and 2020 numbers, but most were not as high as 2019.
The agency reported 2.971 million visitors in June, up 3.2 percent from 2.878 million in May and 178.9 percent from 1.065 million in June 2020. But the total was still 17.6 percent down on June 2019’s 3.607 million.
Visit statistics for June are incomplete and expected to be revised as the agency failed to receive attendance numbers for eight trade shows and events in June, including World of Concrete, the first major trade show in the US since the pandemic began.
“Hotel occupancy continued to improve, reaching 75.9 percent, while weekend occupancy approached 90 percent and weekday occupancy reached 70.9 percent,” said Kevin Bagger, vice president of the agency’s research center.
This total is 5 percentage points better than in May and 35 percentage points higher than in June 2020, but 15.8 percentage points less than in June 2019 with 91.7 percent occupancy.
One category that has not stalled is the average daily room rate, which the agency listed as $ 127.90 this month. This compares to $ 126.69 in May (up 1 percent), $ 104.07 in June 2020 (up 22.9 percent) and $ 120.43 in June 2019 (up 6.2 percent ).
The agency calculated that the average daily room rate on the Strip was $ 134.71 per night and $ 88.71 in downtown Las Vegas.
Another category that has remained strong is automobile traffic.
The agency relied on statistics from the Nevada Department of Transportation and said there were an average of 142,450 vehicles per day on major highways into Las Vegas. This compares to 137,046 in May, an increase of 3.9 percent, 111,805 in June 2020, an increase of 27.4 percent, and 129,006 in June 2019, an increase of 10.4 percent.
The Ministry of Transport admits that it does not distinguish tourist traffic from local traffic.
For the first six months of 2021, Las Vegas reported 13.487 million visitors, an increase of 38.6 percent from 2020 but a decrease of 36.2 percent from 2019.
The hotel occupancy rate over six months was calculated at 57.1 percent, 14.2 percentage points better than in the first half of 2020, but 32.2 percentage points below the first half of 2019.
The average room rate for the first six months of the year was $ 112.61, 18.1 percent below the $ 137.53 reported in 2020 and 16.7 percent below the $ 135.23 year-on-year 2019.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.
