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Las Vegas - Is Everybody Happy? Survey Says….

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority marketing experts hope a study of 1999 visitor trends will help them gain an edge in attracting tourists when the competition gets tougher in the years ahead.

Rossi Ralenkotter, vice president of marketing for the LVCVA, identified the top five visitor trends of 1999 and explained the significance of statistics gathered in a 1999 Las Vegas visitor profile study at Tuesday's meeting of the agency's board of directors.

The research was gleaned from 3,300 personal interviews conducted by GLS Research from July 1, 1998, through June 30, 1999. The surveyors conducted about 275 interviews per month in and around Las Vegas hotel-casinos.

The top five trends:

Visitors are spending more on non-gaming activities with food and beverage purchases leading the way with a 53.9 percent increase, from $113.65 to $173.28 per trip, between 1996 and 1999.

The average visitor's gambling budget has increased - the first time that has happened in three years. The average visitor's gambling budget has increased $90 to $559 since 1998.

The length of stay for the average visitor has climbed back to 1996 levels. The number of nights stayed declined from 3.7 nights in 1996 but rebounded to that level in 1999.

The number of visitors with a household income exceeding $40,000 a year increased again in 1999. In 1999, the LVCVA estimated that 61 percent of Las Vegas' visitors had income exceeding that level, up from 60 percent in 1998, 57 percent in 1997 and 45 percent in 1996.

The average age of the Las Vegas visitor is nearing 50, following national Baby Boomer trends. The average age in 1997 was 48.3, climbing to 49.2 in 1998 and 49.9 in 1999.

Las Vegas has been conducting visitor profile studies since 1973, Ralenkotter said, and the information helps his department develop advertising and marketing strategies.

Ralenkotter said the study is important because competition is increasing for Las Vegas.

"We have competition on the convention side, for leisure travel and there's more competition for the gaming product," Ralenkotter said. "These national tracking studies give resorts some comparison to the research they have on their own customers."

Ralenkotter said his department will be particularly interested in how the increased presence of Indian gaming in California will affect Las Vegas and the surrounding Clark County markets the LVCVA supports. California voters last week approved a proposition that will allow more casinos to be developed on Indian reservations in that state.

"We'll be watching how that affects Laughlin, Mesquite, Primm and Jean," Ralenkotter said.

The 1999 profile study -- gathered before the California vote -- indicates the proliferation of gaming outside Nevada won't have a major impact on decisions to visit Las Vegas.

"In the 1999 survey, 56 percent of visitors said that having other places to gamble made no difference in their decision to visit Las Vegas," the report says. "This figure was down significantly over 1998 (70 percent).

"However, 37 percent of the respondents in the current study said they were more likely to visit Las Vegas, up significantly from the proportion who said this last year (23 percent). More importantly, however, the proportion who said they were less likely to visit Las Vegas did not change in the past year."

Ralenkotter said there were no big surprises for him in the visitor profile study and that the increases in spending on non-gaming activities, gambling budget and length of stay are reflective of the strength of the national economy, the double-digit increases in visitor volume, increases in the number of international visitors and convention delegates.

The increase in spending for non-gaming activities, he said, shows the diversification of the Las Vegas tourism product, where visitors can be entertained with a wide variety of attractions.

The LVCVA's study also told the agency what visitors don't like about Las Vegas.

Asked how happy they were with their visit to Las Vegas, 96 percent said they were "very satisfied." Three percent said they were "somewhat satisfied" and 1 percent said they were "very dissatisfied."

Of those very dissatisfied, 25 percent had complaints about their hotel, 17 percent complained that Las Vegas was dirty or deteriorating, 11 percent said things were too expensive and 10 percent said it was too crowded or congested.

Another 7 percent were unhappy that they didn't win when they gambled, 7 percent said people were rude or unfriendly, 5 percent said they didn't like Las Vegas in general, and 2 percent each said the restaurant food was bad, that there was too much activity going on and they were unhappy about taxi service. One percent of those very dissatisfied said there were not enough family activities and 10 percent mentioned other concerns that didn't fit those categories.

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