In this week’s Indy Gaming, a general malaise toward U.S. travel hurts more than just the gaming industry. Also, changes approved for private gaming salons.
Declining business on the Strip has made its way into Nevada’s outdoor recreation industry. Tourism leaders said the resort industry is in a modest business slowdown.
Strip resort executives aren’t the only tourism leaders concerned that international customers are avoiding Nevada this summer.
Mandi Elliott, executive director of the Nevada Outdoor Business Coalition, said last week that the trade organization’s members worry about the general malaise toward U.S. travel, which could financially harm the state’s tourism industry.
During an event organized at Clark County Wetlands Park by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) to highlight issues facing Nevada’s outdoor tourism, Elliott said organization members have lost business from Canadian customers for the same reasons they are avoiding the Strip.
Las Vegas-based Base Camp Outdoors, which leases camping, hiking and ancillary equipment for outdoor excursions, received several cancellations from Canadians who decided against traveling to the U.S. “because of the current administration’s policies,” Elliott said.
Cortez Masto said Nevada’s $8.1 billion local outdoor recreation economy could take a serious financial blow if international customers stay home. Visits often include outdoor recreational areas in and near Nevada, such as Lake Tahoe, Great Basin National Park, Red Rock National Conservation Area, Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon.
“I’m trying to highlight this because most people don’t realize the impact tourism and travel have on the economy,” Cortez Masto said.
There are ominous signals for Nevada’s gaming and tourism sector in 2025.
Strip casino revenue has declined in three consecutive months and trails the first four months of 2024 by less than 1 percent.
Las Vegas visitation has fallen in each of 2025’s first four months, a cumulative drop of nearly 1 million visitors or 6.5 percent. Analysts predict it will be a challenge to match last year’s 41.7 million visitors, Las Vegas’ highest total since drawing 42.5 million visitors in 2019.
Volume at Harry Reid International Airport is down 3.6 percent to 17.9 million passengers over four months. International passenger volume decreased in each of the last three months, but is still up 2.7 percent, given January’s 17 percent increase that came before President Donald Trump announced his tariffs, beginning a trade war, or his proposal to make Canada the nation’s 51st state.
In the last two months, passenger volume from the three major Canadian airlines is down by double digits.
“Right now, this feels like a pretty modest slowdown,” Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill said in an interview Monday. “It is driven somewhat by Canada, but it’s largely a domestic issue around consumer confidence and consumer sentiment.”
A 1.1 percent drop in Las Vegas visitation was surprising given that Strip gaming revenue was $840.1 million, the market’s third-highest single-month total following $905.3 million in December 2023 and $881.2 million in December 2024.
Compared with a year ago, visitation fell 12 percent in February, 8 percent in March and 5 percent in April, and the LVCVA offered explanations for each month’s declines.
The Super Bowl, which was held in Las Vegas in February 2024, went to New Orleans. Meanwhile, concerns over the unclear federal trade and economic policies chilled visitation in March and April. Hill predicted May’s tourism numbers will largely be affected by consumer confidence.
Through April, hotel rooms at Strip resorts have averaged almost $202 a night, down 5.5 percent from a year ago. Occupancy is at 85.5 percent, a less than 1 percent dip, but there are 4,000 fewer hotel rooms in the market after last year’s closures of The Mirage and Tropicana.
The Strip’s major declines in the last few decades came during the Great Recession in the late 2000s. The pandemic devastated the market in 2020 with a 78-day shutdown of the state’s resort industry, followed by health and safety mandates that slowed visitation into 2021.
“If we were down in the last 25 or 30 years, it was because of a normal business cycle,” Hill said. “That’s what it feels like right now. It’s a relatively shallow slowdown, and the decisions are being made to rectify that.”
The LVCVA board of directors recently approved a $460 million budget for fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1. Hill said the budget anticipates a 5 percent decline in room tax revenue but includes $168 million for marketing and advertising.
Hill said some of the efforts to reverse any trends will be made “by the time we get through the summer.”
One positive sign came from MGM Resorts International officials, who told analysts that hotel revenue from their 10 Strip resorts was an all-time high in April, but was leveling off in May.
“The month-to-month data can be choppy at times,” wrote Citizens Bank gaming analyst Jordan Bender.
Read this article, which was shared with Noticiero Móvil, over at The Nevada Independent. This story was reported by Howard Stutz and originally published on June 4.