by Calculated Risk on 5/07/2019 04:46:00 PM

During the recession, I wrote about the troubles in Las Vegas and included a chart of visitor and convention attendance: Lost Vegas.

Since then Las Vegas visitor traffic recovered to new record highs.

However, in 2018, visitor traffic declined 0.2% compared to 2017, but was still 7.5% above the pre-recession peak.

Convention attendance declined 2.2% in 2018 from the record high in 2017.  Here is the data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.  

Click on graph for larger image.

The blue bars are annual visitor traffic (left scale), and the red line is convention attendance (right scale).  2019 is estimate based on Q1 data.

Convention attendance was up 1.5% in Q1 2019 compared to Q1 2018.

Visitor traffic was up 0.8% in Q1 2019 compared to Q1 2018.

Historically, declines in Las Vegas visitor traffic have been associated with economic weakness, so the slight declines over the last two years was concerning.