February tourism up on strong convention attendance

Strong convention attendance boosted February visitation totals and the city’s average daily room rate continued to expand, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Tuesday.

Convention attendance grew 12.1 percent to 550,271 for the month, lifting February visitation to 3.2 million people, a 0.9 percent increase from the same month in 2014.

For the first two months of 2015, visitation is up 0.5 percent to 6.5 million people.

Three large trade shows that traditionally meet in January and February shifted dates this year. The National Association of Home Builders expo and the Kitchen &Bath Industry Show met in February last year and in January this year. The World of Concrete expo, which brought 55,000 attendees to the city, shifted from January 2014 to February this year.

The shift in dates and January’s record International Consumer Electronics Show attendance resulted in two strong months for the city.

Another metric that continued to show strength was the average daily room rate. In February, it climbed 3 percent to $116.48 and for the first two months of 2015, it’s up 9.4 percent to $126.57 from a year earlier. The annual average last year was $116.73.

Room rates were strongest on the Strip, where the rate was up 1.8 percent to $125.30. Downtown rates were down 14.2 percent to $57.74 for the month.

Other rising indicators for February involved transportation into the city. Last week, McCarran International Airport reported a 2.9 percent increase to 3.2 million passengers. The authority said auto traffic also was strong for the month, with an 8.1 percent increase to 99,517 daily vehicles on all of Southern Nevada’s major highways. That includes a 7.4 percent increase to 39,820 daily vehicles on Interstate 15 at the California border.

McCarran figures and auto traffic statistics compiled by the Nevada Transportation Department include local residents using that transportation.

But occupancy rates were off when compared with last year.

Citywide occupancy was down 0.9 percentage points to 84.7 percent for the month. Declines were reported for hotels (down 1 point to 86.7 percent), motels (down 0.4 points to 65.8 percent) midweek stays (down 1.5 points to 81.1 percent) and Strip occupancy (down 1.3 points to 85.9 percent).

Two sectors showed improvements in occupancy: weekends, up 0.6 points to 92.3 percent, and downtown occupancy, up 3.8 points to 79.2 percent.

Trends for Laughlin and Mesquite continued.

Visitor volume for Laughlin was down 4 percent to 152,199. Average daily room rates were up 6.1 percent to $29.22 and the occupancy rate was up 4.5 percentage points to 65.7 percent.

For Mesquite, visitor volume was up 2.2 percent to 96,810 while room rates climbed 13.6 percent to $60.65. The occupancy rate remained at 76.9 percent for the month.

Although there were mixed results on tourism indicators for Laughlin and Mesquite, both showed improved gross gaming revenue results in February. Laughlin gaming revenue was up 7.2 percent to $43 million in Laughlin and up 3.4 percent to $10.4 million in Mesquite.