In Nevada, the Las Vegas Convention And Visitors Authority has reported a strong September for the western city as visitor numbers reached 3.7 million while convention attendance swelled by 16.2% year-on-year to hit 614,924.
According to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper, September’s visitor volumes for Las Vegas represented the fourth-best month of the year with every tourism indicator up when compared with the same period in 2015. It declared that the month had especially benefited from the annual Global Gaming Expo (G2E), which was attended by more than 27,000 and last year staged in October, as well as the 44,000 that visited the quadrennial MineExpo event while the Solar Energy Trade Show welcomed over 18,000 to the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The newspaper reported that Las Vegas also profited from having an extra weekend day in September versus the identical month in 2015 as average daily room rates for the 30-day period increased by 8.9% year-on-year to $137.11.
For the first nine months of the year, the Las Vegas Convention And Visitors Authority reportedly explained that trade show, convention and conference attendance came in at just more than 5 million with southern Nevada well on track to break 2006’s all-time annual high of 6.3 million. The newspaper stated that visitor numbers for the period are moreover on record pace with the 32.5 million to the end of September representing a 1.8% boost year-on-year.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal additionally reported that average daily room rates for the first nine months of 2016 sat at $125.69, which was well ahead of last year’s $119.94, while September occupancy figures were three percentage points higher than last year at 92.9%.
All of this helped the Nevada Gaming Control Board report total state-wide gross gaming revenues for September of $949 million, which was 3.5% ahead of the same month last year, helped by casinos on the Las Vegas Strip as they saw their win rise by 7.5% to $542.5 million. Adding to the good news and properties in downtown Las Vegas declared a 3.6% boost to $49.2 million while Reno’s figures advanced by around 2% to $54 million with South Lake Tahoe experiencing a similar improvement to $22 million.
For the three months to the end of September, the Nevada Gaming Control Board reported that total state-wide gross gaming revenues were up by 2.8% year-on-year to $2.86 billion with the Las Vegas Strip recording a 3.1% boost to $1.6 billion while the downtown total was up by 4.3% to $133.9 million.
In Clark County, casinos had a 6.8% win percentage on slots for September followed by 15.1% for table games while monthly gross gaming revenues improved by 3.6% year-on-year to $808.8 million. The county’s casinos won $474.6 million on slots, which was a swell of 2.2%, and 5.8% more on table games to $335.2 million.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board related that the state had moreover collected $63.4 million in taxes for September, which represented a 9.1% increase year-on-year, while the $228.3 million recorded since the start of the fiscal year on July 1 was a 5.3% improvement.
However, the news was not all good as September gross gaming revenues from casinos in Boulder City dropped by 3.8% year-on-year with the Carson Valley area, which includes Carson City, Gardnerville and Minden, off by 0.7%.
Michael Lawton, Tax And License Division Senior Research Analyst for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, put any drops down to the timing of slot collections as September ended on a Friday.
“If you recall last month, the market was significantly up due to the same factor but it was a positive impact,” Lawton told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “If you combined the two months, the market is down just 1.8% in total and slots are down just 0.3%. As for the three-month trend, I am not too concerned considering the longer-term trend shows the market is up 1% calendar year to date after a 3.8% decrease during the last quarter.”