On eve of Super Bowl Sunday, Las Vegas hotel room rates plummet

Maybe it pays to wait to book a room for the Super Bowl.

Room rates for Las Vegas motels and hotels for Friday and Saturday night — preceding Sunday’s Super Bowl 58 between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium — plummeted an estimated 35 percent from a survey taken Jan. 18.

Room rates fluctuate over time, based on supply and demand. A survey completed Thursday showed rates averaging $288.82 a night. That compares with an average rate of $443.84 a night in a survey taken three weeks earlier. A week ago, the average rate was $403.09 a night.

Each of the three surveys averaged room rates for Friday and Saturday night in advance of Super Bowl Sunday. The Las Vegas Review-Journal calculated averages based on published prices from Hotels.com. They don’t include taxes or resort fees that can be as high as $50 a night.

Some resorts — notably Wynn and Encore Las Vegas — have held firm to the original pricing they listed of $2,500 a night.

Others, such as Caesars Palace, the National Football League’s official host property, have been sold out for weeks.

Average rates fluctuate around the city.

Thursday’s survey showed Strip hotels had an average rate of $580.63 a night for 38 properties while downtown Las Vegas properties had an average rate of $193.36 a night for 14 properties.

The off-Strip market, which included properties in Primm, Pahrump and Boulder City, was $213.22 a night at 129 properties.

All told, the survey included 181 properties, some of which were added to Hotels.com since the first survey in January.

There were still several properties asking more than $1,000 a night, including the two Wynn resorts, the Waldorf Astoria ($1,300), MGM Signature at MGM Grand ($1,170), Venetian’s Prestige suites ($1,089) and Fontainebleau ($1,010).

The English Hotel ($499) was the highest-priced downtown property while the recently opened Durango in southwest Las Vegas ($1,199) had the highest off-Strip rate.

Pricing that wasn’t available in the two earlier surveys appeared Thursday — rooms for under $100 a night.

There were 13 properties — none on the Strip — with rooms going for under $100. The least expensive place to stay was Buffalo Bill’s in Primm, which was offering rooms for $52 a night. In downtown Las Vegas, the Gold Strike Oasis hotel was offering rooms for $88.

All of the averages calculated were well above average daily room rate levels calculated by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. In February 2023, the LVCVA said average rates were $176.64 overall, with $188.18 on the Strip and $95.23 downtown. The LVCVA won’t release this month’s rate data until the end of March.

Carlsbad, California-based Sports Management Research Institute, which monitors economic impact activity on the host cities of major sporting events, said four- and five-star rooms in Las Vegas would be selling for anywhere from three to four times the average rate of other weekends.

SMRI’s early analysis of rates projected a Las Vegas average of $1,312 a night at top Las Vegas resorts, lower than the $1,889 in the Phoenix area last year when Glendale, Arizona, hosted Super Bowl 57.

“It’s not surprising that we are looking at record (average daily rate) highs when it comes to the nightly rates that Las Vegas hotels are commanding with the world’s biggest sporting event visiting for the first time,” said Kathleen Davis, SMRI’s founder and CEO. “For decades, we could only speculate what it would be like to have the game in Vegas, and now that it has become a reality, I think we’re going to see some stunning figures across the board, from hotels to so many other areas that affect tourism and economic impact.”

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