Las Vegas Room Rates Rise in June

The average daily room rate in Las Vegas continues to soar, statistics compiled by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority say.

The June ADR climbed to $92.58, a 15.7 percent increase over the same month a year ago. It was the fifth straight month of double-digit increases. Over the first six months of 2005, the ADR is up 13.4 percent to $104.41.

With occupancy levels climbing and the city's room inventory up slightly, the increase in ADR has boosted room tax revenue substantially.

Room tax collection figures trail other statistics by a month. For the first five months of 2005, $85.8 million in tax revenue has been collected. In May, the city collected $18.4 million, a 22.3 percent increase over May 2004.

The LVCVA said June visitor volume was 3.2 million, a 7.2 percent increase over June 2004. Much of the increase was attributed to increased convention traffic. Convention attendance for the month hit 420,625, 40.8 percent ahead of June 2004, with the number of conventions up 26.7 percent to 1,969.

Gaming analyst Marc Falcone of Deutsche Bank called the results encouraging.

"Visitation trends have begun to pick up in May and June, bringing year-to-date visitation to 2.7 percent (higher than the previous year) from 1.4 percent after the first quarter," Falcone said. "However, the overall visitation growth is being driven by strong convention attendance, which has offset softer tourism trends."

Occupancy levels climbed 3.7 points to 91.2 percent from June 2004 to June 2005. Every occupancy category was higher year over year with hotel occupancy up 2.3 points to 94.1 percent, motel occupancy up 10.1 points to 72 percent, weekend occupancy up 2.4 points to 96.6 percent and midweek occupancy up 4.3 points to 89.3 percent.

Auto traffic was higher this June from last. The LVCVA said traffic on all major highways was up 7.3 percent to 92,047 vehicles for the month and at the Nevada-California border, traffic was up 3.6 percent to 42,377.

The LVCVA also monitors visitor volume in Laughlin and Mesquite. In Laughlin, visitation was down 0.9 percent to 322,472 and for the first six months of 2005, it's down 3.7 percent to 2 million visitors.

In Mesquite, June traffic was down 6.7 percent to 137,524 visitors and for the first six months of the year, it's off 3.3 percent to 857,426 visitors.