Las Vegas hosted 3.4 million visitors this past May, a 3.4 percent increase from May of 2004, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said last Tuesday. It seems the convention was the reason the town reached the high number. April 28ths debut of Wynn Las Vegas as well as MGM Grand's May 14 middleweight boxing match between Felix Trinidad and Winky Wright, only reached 2.3 million visitors to the hotels.
The conventions reached astounding digits of visitors, such as; Waste Expo (11,421) and Choice Hotels International (5,179). New trade shows events with the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show (55,000) and American Institute of Architects (24,440).The National Hardware Show (26,000), and additional delegates this year, which brought (50,000). Overall, local convention attendance topped 660,000 for the month, alone.
Conventioneer spending for all these events reached more than $825.6 million. Due to the hotel expansions in the city, the hotels residents rose to 3.1 percent from last year. That did not drive down hotel rooms at a rate of $104.86 a night for all the attendees.
Las Vegas may have been up tourism in May, but monthly tourism was down in Southern Nevada. Laughlin was at 324,000, and Colorado River Resort was at 1.74 million. In Mesquite, May's visitor totals were at 146,468. Throughout this year's first five months, its 719,902 total was below 2.6 percent from previous years.
Some blame this percentage drop in Southern Nevada on the Las Vegas conventions, though there may not be any connection. What is for sure is Las Vegas is growing, and Southern Nevada is slowly slipping behind. The trend continuing is unclear; it may just be a slow month for Southern Nevadans. |
