Las Vegas sees sharp visitor drop as leisure spending wanes

LAS VEGAS - On Fridays, it still feels like peak Vegas – rolling suitcases, packed rideshare queues and the familiar churn at Harry Reid International. By Monday, the airport is considerably more quiet.

“Our peaks are still peaks, and our valleys are softer,” said Mr James Chrisley, director of the Clark County Aviation Department.

The softening is showing up in hotel pricing, flight schedules and pay cheques – echoing what the Federal Reserve’s survey and recent airline earnings calls have flagged: Higher-income travellers keep booking, while households feeling the pinch pull back.

With the top 10 per cent of earners driving consumer spending, economists warn recession risks can rise if affluent, market-linked spending suddenly cools.

Nowhere is that divide clearer than in Las Vegas, a city powered by leisure spending that just posted its sharpest annual visitor decline outside the pandemic.

Las Vegas drew about 3.1 million fewer visitors in 2025, a 7.5 per cent drop – its sharpest decline outside the pandemic since record-keeping began in 1970, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The agency does not break down its visitation figures by domestic versus international travellers.

Conventions are holding up; the weakness is leisure – the city’s lifeblood.

“I think this is more of a microcosm of where the American consumer is than necessarily telling us where the American economy is going,” said Andrew Woods, who heads the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada.

Mr Woods said other big vacation spots – like Honolulu, Orlando and Disneyland – are not seeing the same downward trend in visitors as Las Vegas, adding that the city’s high prices and fees have made it especially vulnerable as budget-conscious travellers pull back.

Officials and executives said Las Vegas is coming off two straight record years and is now settling into a more balanced market.

Midweek fade

The shift is most visible in the middle of the week.

Weekdays are when hotels build steady volume – rooms that cover payrolls and keep restaurants and casino floors moving. When that demand softens, hotels can backfill with promotions, but they usually lower prices or add perks to do it.

Location data from Placer.ai shows that the weekday share of foot traffic on the Las Vegas Strip has been declining, while the weekend share has been rising: It reached 35.3 per cent in 2025, up from 33.8 per cent in 2019.

Officials, analysts, workers and visitors cited a mix of political unease and more cautious travel plans. Ms Fernanda Loiza, a tourist from Guatemala, said some travellers may be staying away because of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has ensnared tourists in some high-profile cases. Some people, Ms Loiza said, are afraid of “coming and openly and freely enjoying Las Vegas”.

International visitors matter disproportionately because they typically stay longer and spend more.

Tour guide Michael Hillman said travellers are bristling at how pricey Las Vegas has become. “Ten bucks for a bottle of water,” he said. “People don’t see a deal anymore.”

Economists say years of add-on fees and higher prices have left visitors feeling they pay more for less – a model that is harder to sustain as inflation weighs on budgets.

Hotels discount, airlines pull back

MGM Resorts in February said revenue and earnings at its Las Vegas resorts fell in the fourth quarter and in 2025, citing outsized weakness at value-oriented properties such as Luxor and Excalibur, even as executives said trends were improving into 2026.

Caesars Entertainment reported on Feb 17 that profit and revenue fell at its Las Vegas segment in the quarter ending in December and in all of 2025. For the full year, profit was down about 20 per cent year on year, on roughly a 5 per cent drop in revenue.

Strip hotels have leaned on seasonal offers and dining credits since late 2025, sometimes adding perks to hold demand. CoStar Group data shows midweek revenue per available room fell about 11 per cent in 2025.

“Las Vegas remains a predominantly leisure-driven hotel market,” said Mr Michael Stathokostopoulos, a senior market analyst at CoStar. Inflation and economic uncertainty, he said, are pushing travellers to skip trips, shorten stays or trade down.

Airlines have trimmed schedules as demand has softened. Cirium data shows US carriers have about 7 per cent fewer seats scheduled into Las Vegas for the first quarter of 2026 than a year earlier.

International traffic shows a similar trend, particularly from Canada, a key overseas market. Major Canadian carriers have cut capacity for the quarter by about 30 per cent. The pullback comes as some Canadians have shown greater reluctance to travel to the US amid political tensions, including fallout from US tariffs and immigration-related policies.

Economists say the next test comes this spring, as households book summer travel. One early gauge will be drive-in traffic from Southern California, a key feeder market.

For some job seekers, the slowdown is already stark. Ms Woo Shuang, 26, said she has struggled to land interviews and received a string of automated rejections. She recently enrolled in training to become a casino dealer.

“It’s been really tough,” she said. “The entire city runs on tourism.” REUTERS