Southern Nevada’s tourism and gaming numbers in February simply couldn’t keep up with the year Las Vegas hosted Super Bowl 58. And it was Leap Year.
Southern Nevada gaming and tourism leaders have discovered the downside of hosting a Super Bowl — it’s virtually impossible to keep pace statistically in future years.
That was the story of February visitation and gaming win figures released Monday by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
Visitation plunged 11.9 percent from February 2024 with gaming win down 13.8 percent on the Strip for the month.
Experts said there were two major factors why virtually every statistical category was down from last year. In addition to Southern Nevada having a blockbuster month in February 2024 when Allegiant Stadium hosted Super Bowl 58, the calendar shortchanged everything by a day with last year enjoying 29 days in the month for leap year compared with 28 this year.
“With the combined factors of a tough comparison to last year when Super Bowl 58 was held in the destination, a net decrease in the convention segment tied to rotation cycles, and one fewer day on the calendar compared to the 2024 Leap Year, visitation fell below 3 million for the month,” said Kevin Bagger, director of the LVCVA Research Center.
Bagger said nearly every tourism indicator in February was below 2024 levels.
Visitor volume totaled just below 3 million. Convention attendance was down 19.5 percent to 615,400. Hotel occupancy was off 3.4 percentage points to 80.5 percent. The average daily room rate sank 25 percent to $186.16 a night. And the number of room nights occupied fell 10.7 percent to 3.4 million.
Harry Reid International Airport on Friday reported 7.5 percent fewer passengers — 4 million — used Las Vegas’ primary airport. Only a handful of airlines had more passengers in February than last year. The top six commercial air carriers had fewer passengers in February this year than last, with market leader Southwest Airlines down 5.9 percent to 1.5 million and No. 2 Spirit Airlines off 21.8 percent to 452,738.
On the gaming side, the Control Board reported Monday that Clark County win fell 9.7 percent to $1.06 billion. The Strip’s plunge to $690.3 million wasn’t even the worst drop by percentage. That dubious honor went to South Lake Tahoe, down 17.6 percent to $17.6 million.
Statewide, gaming win preserved its run of 48 consecutive months exceeding $1 billion with $1.22 billion, down 9.3 percent from a year ago, when Nevada had its best February ever.
Not every Southern Nevada market fell. Mesquite was up 2.8 percent to $16.5 million and Laughlin improved 0.4 percent to $42.2 million. Outlying Clark County, which includes Henderson and the southwest valley, home of the Durango, open for 14 months, climbed 1 percent to $144 million.
Some of the tourism numbers were affected by convention rotations when some shows were here at different times.
“Las Vegas convention attendance reached roughly 615,000 in February, down 19.5 percent year over year, reflecting in part the calendar impact of World Market Center’s Winter show (38,000 attendees) and Total Product Expo (8,000 attendees) ending in January this year vs. February last year,” Bagger said. “In addition, show rotations of International Roofing Expo (15,000 attendees) and National Automobile Dealers Association (22,000 attendees) were held elsewhere this year.”
Bagger said occupancy reached 80.5 percent, down 3.4 points with weekend occupancy of 86.4 percent (down 3.9 points) and midweek occupancy of 77.7 percent (down 3.3 points).
