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Travel and Tourism: Data: May Visitor Count Flat

LAS VEGAS -- The city's primary economic engine remained largely in neutral through the first five months of 2003, a new survey shows.

Las Vegas' reported 3.05 million May visitors was virtually unchanged versus the 3.06 million people tallied during the same month a year ago. In addition, the city's year-to-date visitor total of 14.68 million was also very close to the 14.73 million total reported from January through May 2002.

"With all that's gone on this year it's encouraging to know after five months our visitor volume is off less than 1 percent," said Kevin Bagger, who helped compile the current visitor statistics on behalf of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The report was released Friday.

May occupancy levels at Las Vegas-area hotels were 85.7 percent, down 0.6 percent from May 2002. Year-to-date, occupancy levels reached 85.3 percent, down 0.2 percent.

Convention attendance was off 3.1 percent in May, though up 5.2 percent for the year. Separately, total room nights occupied showed variations of less than 1 percent in both the monthly and year-to-date categories.

The only segment that showed significant improvement was the average daily room rate tourists paid to stay in area hotels and motels. It was up to $85.47 in May, a 9.5 percent improvement. Year-to-date, the average daily rate reached $86.06, up 8.6 percent from last year.

Joe Greff, gaming analyst at New York-based Fulcrum Global Partners, downplayed the apparent lack of tourism growth. He said the city's tourism industry was hampered by the war in Iraq and other traveler concerns through mid-May but added later indicators point toward improvement during the later half of the month and into the start of the summer.

"People have started to make plans and head out for the summer," said Greff, whose company is an independent Wall Street investment research firm. "What happened through May at this point really is not so important."

Elsewhere in Southern Nevada, Mesquite enjoyed a 12.2 percent improvement in its May total of 150,953 visitors. Year-to-date, the Virgin River resort hosted 721,444 visitors through May, a 6.8 percent increase from the same period a year ago.

Laughlin reported a 2.4 percent increase to its May visitor total, though its yearly numbers were off 4.1 percent from last year. The town reported 366,061 May visitors and 1.8 million guests through the first five months of 2003, the convention authority said.

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