March Madness events boosted Reid Airport passenger counts

A report released Tuesday found visitors to Las Vegas paid more for hotel rooms on average in March than in any month in history.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported the average daily room rate was was 30.7 percent higher than March 2022 and 59.2 percent more than in March 2019. The LVCVA broke the room rate averages down to $228.46 on the Strip and $122.33 in downtown Las Vegas.

In addition, March Madness delivered a full-court press to Harry Reid International Airport last month as it saw the second busiest month in history, the Clark County Department of Aviation said Monday.

Visitation soared 9.6 percent to 3.66 million in March and many of those travelers paid an average $213.25 a night to stay in a resort hotel, according to the LVCVA. And tourism statistics showed figures that were closer to pre-pandemic levels, with March visitation off by 1.1 percent from March 2019 levels.

The triennial ConExpo-Con/Agg construction industry trade show helped land 771,000 conventioneers in Las Vegas for the month — the highest number since February 2020.

Kevin Bagger, vice president of the LVCVA Research Center, said occupancy levels averaged 88.3 percent, the highest level in more than three years.

“Achieving impressive levels by both pre- and post-pandemic standards, weekend occupancy reached 94.5 percent for the month, which was 2.4 percentage points higher year over year, while conventions helped propel midweek occupancy to 85.8 percent, 9.2 points higher year over year,” Bagger said.

For the quarter, visitor volume was up 18.8 percent to 10 million people with convention traffic up 58.1 percent to 1.9 million. The quarterly occupancy rate is at 83.2 percent, up 13.4 points over 2022, and the average daily room rate stands at $194.92, up 26.8 percent.

Bagger attributed the city’s sports and entertainment calendar to drawing large crowds of visitors.

After a downturn in traffic on highways leading to Las Vegas in February, March traffic counts rebounded with the average number of vehicles up 3.4 percent to 131,104, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation. NDOT does not differentiate between local traffic and tourists.

While vehicle traffic was higher overall, vehicle counts on Interstate 15 at the California-Nevada border were down for the second straight month, off 1.3 percent to 43,256 vehicles in March.

Airport passengers higher

Travelers made up for the vehicle traffic with higher numbers at Reid Airport.

Reid had its best March ever with 4.9 million passengers passing through terminal gates. March totals were second only to the record 5.2 million passengers that used the airport in October. The previous best March occurred in 2019 when 4.4 million passengers were reported.

Airport officials attributed the high number of passengers to the city hosting several NCAA basketball tournaments, two nights of Taylor Swift concerts at Allegiant Stadium as well March being the month for spring break getaways.

Airport officials said passenger counts are up 25.4 percent over 2022 to 13.5 million passengers for the first quarter of the year. That means the airport is on a pace to shatter 2022’s record of 52.7 million passengers.

Officials noted that the airport has 15 more nonstop domestic markets than it had in 2019. In March, domestic traffic was up 14.1 percent to 4.6 million passengers, while international arrivals and departures were up 64 percent to 252,670.

Southwest Airlines continued to dominate domestic travel, serving 1.7 million passengers in March, a 16.2 percent increase. No. 2 commercial air carrier Spirit Airlines was up 39 percent to 748,689 passengers.

A handful of domestic air carriers had downturns in March: Avelo (74.2 percent), American (5.5 percent), Sun Country (4.6 percent) and Allegiant Air (3.4 percent).

Among international carriers, Canadian airlines had double- and triple-digit percentage increases in passengers while all European carriers showed robust upticks for the spring travel season.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.