The pandemic-battered Las Vegas Strip saw January gaming revenues fall more than 43 percent year on year.
Win totaled $321.5 million versus $572.2 million last January, according to figures compiled by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
The drop was hardly surprising measured against one of the last pre-Covid months of 2020 and one that benefited from the massive New Year’s celebrations that were absent from the Strip in 2021 and the Consumer Electronics Show, a major January event that went virtual this year.
January is normally Las Vegas’ second-best convention month of the year. Some 717,000 attendees converged on the city last January, compared to something like zero in January 2021. Year on year, the difference was a 63.5 percent decline in total visitation for the month and a midweek hotel occupancy rate of just 22.5 percent compared with 83.8 percent last January. Total occupancy was 48.3 percent.
The impacts on gaming revenue drove down statewide win for the month by 26.6 percent to $761.8 million, compared to $1.03 billion a year ago.
The Las Vegas Strip accounted for 90.9 percent of the total decline.
The response from analysts, however, generally were upbeat.
Macquarie Securities Chad Beynon said Las Vegas operators had set a “slightly more cautious” tone for January in their fourth quarter earnings reports, in light of which he views January’s results as “a small positive.”
“Obviously, a lack of non-gaming spending will continue to impair near-term results, but it is encouraging to see (a) healthy (and) spending visitor.”
Joe Greff with J.P. Morgan said, “Given improved vaccination rates, slower Covid-19 new case trends, and increased capacity limits, we think this month likely marks the bottom of Las Vegas Strip gaming revenue.”
On the plus side, Northern Nevada outperformed last year’s numbers. Washoe County, which includes the Reno market, posted a 4.9 percent revenue increase. Lake Tahoe was up 23.7 percent, and several rural parts of the state also showed double-digit increases.
“Locals and in drive-in domestic play are recording increases to gaming win during the pandemic,” Control Board Senior Research Analyst Michael Lawton explained. “This month, in addition to the player mix, these markets also benefited from a favorable calendar, which included two additional weekend days.”
Another plus was sports betting, which blew away January 2020’s statewide win by 159.9 percent. The state’s books made $52.4 million on wagers totaling $645.5 million, a 28.8 increase over January 2020 and the second-highest monthly volume on record. Mobile bets accounted for $363.5 million of it, good for 56.2 percent.
In related news, officials of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority are scheduled to meet this week to discuss a plan to enlist social media influencers to lure tourists and business travelers back to Las Vegas.
The plan, developed by R&R Partners, the advertising and PR agency for the LVCVA, was laid out on March 1 at a meeting of the authority’s marketing committee, according to a report in the Las Vegas Review Journal.
R&R has proposed a spate of initiatives that include inviting influencers to town this coming weekend for a first-hand look at how the city is gearing up for the demand most observers believe is steadily building for the entertainment and leisure activities Las Vegas is famous for.
In turn, it’s expected those influencers will be sharing the story with their millions of followers.
The plan also calls for enlisting a variety of social media and multimedia platforms to document the preparations and safety protocols being undertaken in advance of the expected return of business travel, commencing with the World of Concrete trade show slated for June, a major event on the Vegas show calendar that drew upwards of 50,000 attendees prior to the pandemic. These will be distributed via video and other channels to meeting planners and convention promoters with an eye on the progress of bookings in the next couple of months and the limitations of the authority’s advertising budget, which has been cut more than 30 percent from 2019’s.
“Taking all those factors into account, if the feeling is shared that we need to punch the accelerator, we’re ready to punch it.” said R&R President Billy Vassiliadis.
Supporting these efforts is an R&R initiative dubbed “Fast Forward,” an addition to the LVCVA’s “Vegas Means Business” conventions web site that will look to leverage the city’s image as a destination of “perpetual reinvention” and “constant redefinition” centered around the new $987 million Las Vegas Convention Center expansion.
Fast Forward will be filled with stories, photographs, maps and videos showing all of the city’s convention and meeting facilities for planners to use in their pitches to businesses, organizations and trade associations that may be undecided about the safety of in-person gatherings.
As part of these efforts, the authority is partnering with Caesars Entertainment in April to bring meeting planners to see the new Convention Center and tour a number of new or revamped meetings venues developed by Caesars, Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts International.
“As we move forward with the vaccine rollout, we expect the second half of the year will start to ramp back up,” said Stephanie Glanzer, chief sales officer for MGM. “I’m a strong believer that we’ll come out of this, and Las Vegas will remain the top destination.”
Statistics published by the LVCVA show that the between last March and this January, the city’s convention attendance, historically the lifeblood of the Strip’s hotel and non-gaming revenues, stood at zero or was too small to count.
Last month, though, the state of Nevada began to ease capacity restrictions on businesses and public gatherings, and they’re set to loosen them again this month, with businesses operating at 35 percent capacity moving up to 50 percent and public gatherings moving up to 250 people or 50 percent capacity.
In the meantime, smaller gatherings that fall below the LVCVA’s radar remain in full swing. MGM, for one, has hosted more than 200 of them in recent months.
“Small groups are happening and will continue to happen,” Glanzer said. “We do believe large gatherings will come soon after (Covid case) numbers get better.”
LVCVA spokeswoman Lori Nelson-Kraft concurred. “Our convention calendar is robust throughout the remainder of this year and into 2022 pending the fluid state of the pandemic,” she said. “Many of our trade shows and meetings are booked years in advance, and even throughout the pandemic, shows have stayed in touch with us, excited to return to in-person events and meetings when it’s appropriate to reconvene.”
In that respect, all eyes are now turned to the arrival of World of Concrete, slated for June 7-10, the first big show to come back since the pandemic hit and the first that will use the Convention Center’s expanded, and as yet unoccupied, West Hall.
As LVCVA President and CEO Steve Hill put It, “It’s like a horse race and we’re at the starting gate.”
