Visitor numbers to Las Vegas continued to rise in July but haven’t reached 2019 levels, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Thursday.
According to LVCVA, Las Vegas saw 3.302 million visitors in July, 129.7 percent more than in July 2020. However, the total is 10.4 percent fewer than in July 2019.
A major reason for the decline is the continued lack of congress business. The congressional authority recorded no participants in July 2021 and 2020. While some groups met in Las Vegas this July, the LVCVA won’t release statistics until it receives attendance numbers from the show’s organizers. In 2019 there were 498,800 congress participants in Las Vegas.
“July was the busiest month to visit since the pandemic began, as the destination hosted 3.3 million visitors, an 11.2 percent increase over the previous month (compared to June),” said Kevin Bagger, vice president of LVCVA- Research center.
Bagger found strong average daily room rates for the month of $ 152.13, up 45.7 percent from July 2020, 19.9 percent more than July 2019, and 18.9 percent more than June.
It was the third highest average daily room rate in a month. Higher averages were recorded at $ 153.40 in January 2020, with a high of $ 156.53 in January 2019. The two higher room rate averages were the result of CES and other January conventions during those years.
The LVCVA reported that the average room rate was $ 160.71 on the Strip and $ 101.54 in downtown Las Vegas.
In the first seven months of 2021, the number of visitors was 16.79 million, 50.3 percent before the first seven months of 2020, but 32.4 percent behind the first seven months of 2019.
Other tourism indicators showed double-digit year-over-year percentage gains and mixed results compared to July 2019.
Hotel occupancy was calculated in July at 79.4 percent, 3.5 percentage points better than in June, 36.9 percentage points better than in July 2020, but 11.7 points behind the total figures from July 2019.
The total number of passengers at McCarran International Airport in July, reported this week by the Clark County Department of Aviation at 4.151 million, was 9 percent more than in June, 155.7 percent more than in July 2020, but 7.9 percent less than in July 2019.
The Nevada Department of Transportation’s traffic census on all major highways leading into Las Vegas showed an average of 144,010 vehicles per day. That is 1.1 percent more than in June, 17.8 percent more than in July 2020 and 6.1 percent more than in July 2019. When counting traffic, NDOT does not differentiate between non-residents and residents.
One of the rural tourism markets monitored by LVCVA showed patterns similar to Las Vegas. Laughlin reported a visitor traffic of 119,200, 6.2 percent more than in June, 24.8 percent before July 2020, but 34.6 percent behind July 2019.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.
