Visitor numbers to Las Vegas rebounded in May to post an increase of 2.4 percent. The number rose to 3.45 million for the month and compares favorably to the previous year’s figure of 3.37 million. It means that for the year-to-date visitors have hit 16.53 million –up 2.4 percent over 2011 (16.14 million). In its report, cited by Las Vegas Review-Journal, Union Gaming’s analysts said, “We think visitation trends will continue to improve going forward given the lack of room supply coupled with the recent opening of Terminal 3 at the McCarran airport”. It means that Vegas is back to the same pattern that saw month-by-month gains for two years worth of months until April’s small decline of 0.9 percent.
Hotel and motel occupancy across the city were also up, by 0.5 percent compared with last year and compared favorably to the year-to-date increase of just 0.2 percent.
Macau, the Las Vegas of the East (don’t tell them I said that!), saw visitor arrivals on package tours rise by 11.8 percent to 669,000 in May. Data from the Statistics and Census Bureau showed the figure for the first five months posted an even more impressive increase of 30 percent to 3.4 million. Of the 669k visitors in May, 465,923 were from the Mainland – an increase of 4.9 percent.
Hotel occupancy in the gambling industry enclave also increased with 754,000 guests getting their heads down – an increase of 9.4 percent on last year. The average occupancy of hotels and guesthouses was just 78.1 percent – 3.8 percent down on last year. This was down to a huge enlargement of the number of rooms available, which rose 12 percent.
