Vegas on a losing streak as visitors drop 11%

Visitor numbers to Las Vegas tumbled 11% in June, with hotel occupancy, room rates and convention traffic all sliding, leaving casinos beyond the Strip to prop up Sin City’s summer slump

The neon hasn’t waned, but the crowds have.

Las Vegas, the self-styled entertainment capital of the world, is grappling with a sharp summer slump. The city’s hotels and convention halls reported significant declines in June, while gaming revenue edged higher.

According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), just over 3,094,800 people visited Sin City last month, an 11.3% fall compared to the same month last year.

Convention attendance dropped by a similar margin, down 10.7% to 374,600, as several major trade shows, including InfoComm (≈30,000 attendees) and Cisco Live (≈18,000), chose alternative destinations this year.

The downturn reverberated across every major tourism metric. Hotel occupancy slipped to 78.7%, six and a half percentage points lower than last June. With 150,220 rooms on offer across the city, 3,546,600 room nights were filled, a 9.7% year-on-year decline.

Room prices also weakened: the average daily rate (ADR) fell 6.6% to $163.64, while revenue per available room (RevPAR) tumbled 13.8% to $128.78.

The city’s famous Strip fared slightly better than its older neighbour downtown, though neither area escaped the slowdown. Strip occupancy stood at 81.9% (down from 88.3%), while downtown slipped to 62.5%. On pricing, the Strip ADR was $174.31 (down 6.7% year on year). Downtown rates fell by 2.3%, averaging $87.55.

The slump was not confined to hotel lobbies. Passenger traffic through Harry Reid International Airport dropped 6.3%, to 4,727,462 arrivals and departures. Road traffic also eased: average daily counts at the California border on Interstate 15 fell 4.3% compared with June 2024.

Despite emptier hotels and convention halls, gaming revenue held firm — and in some areas, grew. Clark County’s casinos posted a 3.5% year-on-year increase in June, reaching $1,158,845,000. The gains, however, came mostly outside the Strip. Boulder Strip casinos surged by 19.3%, and downtown reported a 10.5% rise. By contrast, the Strip saw only a marginal 0.9% increase, highlighting how local and regional play has cushioned the downturn in tourism.

The weak June performance dragged year-to-date visitor numbers down 7.3%, with a total of 19,554,100 arrivals in the first half of 2025. Hotel occupancy across that period averaged 82.0% (down 2.1 points), while RevPAR slipped 7.8%.

Convention business, traditionally a stabiliser for Las Vegas, showed only limited resilience. Year-to-date attendance was up slightly, by 1.5%, but the June falloff underscores the volatility of event scheduling.

The LVCVA attributed the weaker results to “persistent economic uncertainty and weaker consumer confidence, compounded by a slower convention month.”

It said: “Reflecting the broader backdrop of persistent economic uncertainty and weaker consumer confidence, compounded by a slower convention month, the destination saw an 11% year-on-year decline in visitation, hosting approximately 3.1 million visitors.”

Main image: Snapwire/Pexels