Were Las Vegas’ October tourism numbers up or down this year?

October visitation declined 1.8 percent from a year ago but the region is still on track to see more visitors than last year, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Wednesday.

The organization that promotes and monitors Southern Nevada tourism said 3.6 million visitors were in Las Vegas for the month. The city is still on pace to have a higher total this year than in 2023 with 35 million visitors in the first 10 months of the year, 2.4 percent ahead of last year’s pace.

October was only the second month this year to have a year-over-year decline from 2023, with July figures down just 0.4 percent.

Kevin Bagger, vice president of the LVCVA Research Center, explained that October 2023 was particularly robust resulting in most tourism indicators being off from a year ago.

Much of the visitation decline resulted from convention attendance being off 12.7 percent from last year. Bagger said 559,200 attended conventions in October, but TwitchCon, which had 30,000 attendees in 2023, met at the San Diego Convention Center in September this year.

Hotel occupancy, average daily room rate and passenger traffic at Harry Reid International Airport were all down from a year ago. The amount of vehicle traffic on highways leading to Las Vegas was the only positive indicator for the month with traffic up 1.7 percent to 134,155 according to the Nevada Department of Transportation, which doesn’t differentiate between tourists and local traffic.

Las Vegas also has fewer hotel rooms to fill with the closures of the Tropicana and The Mirage earlier this year. The city’s hotel inventory is now at 150,646.

The average daily room rate fell 7 percent to $216.99 a night in October, with the Strip ADR off 7.6 percent to $232.25. Bagger noted that last year’s ADR was a record for October.

The LVCVA calculated hotel occupancy at 85.7 percent, down 2 percentage points, but weekend occupancy was up 0.4 percentage points to 94.6 percent.

One other tourism indicator, Clark County’s gross gaming revenue, is pending as the Nevada Gaming Control Board is expected to release those results next week.

There were mixed results for the outlying Southern Nevada communities supported by LVCVA marketing efforts.

Visitor volume for Laughlin was up 4.1 percent to 106,000 for the month in October. Laughlin’s average daily room rate was down 1.3 percent to $55.01 a night, while occupancy was off 1.3 percentage points to 46.5 percent.

In Mesquite, visitor volume was down 9.4 percent to 77,000 people. But the average daily room rate was up 12 percent to $92.41 a night, while the occupancy rate languished by 3 percentage points to 81.9 percent.

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