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Las Vegas Visitor Numbers Drop

”It's the smallest monthly decline in visitor numbers since September's terrorist attacks.

”Room tax revenue for January totaled nearly $8.6 million, down 12.4 percent from $9.8 million a year ago. Room inventory grew 1.9 percent to 126,667.

”While Las Vegas has shown significant signs of recovery from a downturn in tourism business last year, one visitor said it isn't providing the high level of hospitality service that he has come to expect.

”`The service was very slow and the people seemed stressed out,’ said Dale Adkins, a visitor from Union City, Calif., who has been coming to Las Vegas several times a year with his wife for the last 10 years, and stayed at various hotels on the Strip.

”…The hotels and casinos in Las Vegas laid off between 11,000 and 15,000 workers after Sept. 11, and local union officials complained that casino companies were slow to hire those workers back, even after visitor numbers indicated a recovery from the immediate slump in September, October and November.

”…Adkins said he had friends who also experienced problems during their trip to Vegas, that it was difficult to get questions answered at times like where's the change person, the restroom or the ticket office.

”Convention attendance dropped 5.8 percent in January to 507,191, with a corresponding 5 percent decline in economic impact to $602 million.

”Occupancy levels were down 4.8 percentage points to 80.4 percent at the hotels, and down 4.9 percentage points to 75.4 percent overall.

”Weekend occupancy was 80.2 percent, down 8.3 points from a year ago, and weekday occupancy was 73.4 percent, down 3.6 points.

”…Average daily air seats to Las Vegas decreased 5.7 percent in March, spread across the board in short-haul, long-haul and international markets…”

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