A new report in Nevada Business magazine indicates that tourism to the Silver State is improving steadily, month by month. In June, for the first time since the Covid-19 shutdowns, visitor volume was more than 4 million in June, said Brenda Scolari, director of Nevada Tourism & Cultural Affairs. “Even though that’s 16 percent below comparable in the same month in 2019, we have had visitation growth steadily improving month to month.”
In Vegas, July marked “the strongest visitation month since the pandemic began,” said Steve Hill, president and CEO of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). The city welcomed 3.3 million visitors, up 11.2 percent month-over-month and down 10.4 percent from July 2019.
“This last summer we saw really historically strong numbers,” said Charles Harris, president and CEO, Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority (RSCVA). “Specifically, we set an all-time record in the month of July for the most taxable room revenue for a single month.” Following the best June on record with $45 million in taxable income, July came in at $53.8 million, making it the best month in RSCVA history.
“If you look at the summer, we had back-to-back months that were [in the] top five [in taxable revenue] of all time,” said Harris. “But if you look at the first three quarters of the last fiscal year, there were struggles due to the pandemic. In fiscal year 2021, taxable revenues were down about 19 percent compared to pre-pandemic numbers of 2018, 2019.”
In Lake Tahoe reopened, summer was “good, better than 2019, which preceded the pandemic,” said Carol Chaplin, president and CEO, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority (LTVA). “No one could have anticipated such strong tourism coming out of the shutdown. We had lost our long-haul markets, the flight markets, because people were still hesitant to fly, and international was shut down.
“People were willing to drive longer to get to a destination,” said Chaplin. “And because they were driving longer, they were willing to stay longer.” With the new remote work trend, some could stay as long as they wanted.
Momentum slowed in August due to a spike in delta variant cases as well as the wildfires in Lake Tahoe. But tourism usually dips in August as kids return to school and vacation time ends.
According to the Nevada Business report, when adults visit Nevada, about half of them gamble. Summer 2021 saw a significant rise in gaming by both locals and tourists, resulting in six straight months of $1 billion in statewide gaming revenues. Numbers released by the Nevada Gaming Control Board showed $794 million in gaming revenues in Las Vegas in July, an all-time high and a 46 percent increase compared to July 2019.
“We have remarkable numbers in gaming,” said Scolari. “We had $1.36 billion in gaming revenue in the month of July, which is a record.”
For all the good news, a report from the Nevada Gaming Control Board indicated the trend isn’t expected to continue. After being quarantined for so long, pent up demand to do something is driving travel, outdoor recreation and indoor gaming. Newly flexible work schedules and homeschooling mean people can visit destinations longer; accumulated savings and stimulus funds mean they can afford it.
“We do see some encouraging signs in gaming revenue,” said Virginia Valentine, president and CEO of the Nevada Resort Association. “It’s up at both ends of the state. Gaming is a part of the business model, it’s not the whole business model. So, while gaming is up, we still need things like room rates and occupancy to improve and for international travel to return, for trade shows to return, for entertainment to be fully reopen.”
In November, Nevada will reopen to international travelers, which should provide a boost to tourism dollars.
“There’s no doubt we value international visitors and consider them very high value, because they stay longer and spend more when they’re here,” said Scolari. “Many tourism partners build programs and incentivize international visitation quite specifically, and those numbers have been all but eliminated. We were down almost 94 percent for the past 16 months. So hopefully the allowance for vaccinated travelers to visit domestically is really going to help.”
