Las Vegas surpassed official projections to set a new record of 42.9 million visitors in 2016.
Preliminary numbers tallied by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority indicate the city has handily beat the authority’s forecast of 42.5 million to set a third consecutive record for annual visitation.
Other tourism indicators were also up. The city saw record convention attendance of 6.3 million people, a 7.1 percent increase over 2015, and a 1.4 percent bump in hotel occupancy.
The LVCVA also compiles tourism statistics for the outlying resort towns of Mesquite and Laughlin. Mesquite was up 11.4 percent year on year to 1.3 million tourists. Laughlin had 1.9 million, an increase of 1.2 percent.
The authority is projecting 43.2 million visits to Southern Nevada this year, but a spokesman said 2016 will be “a hard year to beat.”
