-How higher travel costs, affordability concerns, and policies out of Washington, D.C., are impacting Southern Nevada's vital tourism industry, that's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

After a year of slumping tourism, Las Vegas saw a slight increase in visitors this July.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority estimates 3.2 million people visited, up 2.7 percent from July of last year, but that's still nearly 10 percent below July of 2024.

So what do the latest numbers tell us about the state of Las Vegas tourism?

Joining us now is Steve Hill, President and CEO of the LVCVA.

Steve, welcome back to Nevada Week.

-Thanks, Amber.

Appreciate you having me.

-We had you on the show around this same time last year.

And at that time, you described tourism and Las Vegas as being in a lull.

How would you describe it now?

(Steve Hill) Well, it's been stable over the past 12 to 15 months.

It's at a level that we're not thrilled with because we're down about 7.5% from a record high, and we want to keep creating record highs.

-When was that record high?

-That record high was in 2019.

-Okay.

-Yeah.

-Pre-pandemic.

-Yeah.

Now, you know, in 2024, we were very close to that.

So we saw a drop last year, and we have seen no further drop.

In fact, we've seen a little bit of improvement year over year from '25 to '26, but not enough to overcome that 7.5%.

-And what about Canada?

Has that situation changed?

In 2025, Canadian visitation to Las Vegas fell about 17%.

We had talked about when you were on the show last that some Canadians were upset about tariffs, also about the President's comments about making Canada the 51st state.

The frustration with tariffs continues.

Canada is now imposing retaliatory tariffs.

What do you make of all of this, and how is visitation from Canada doing this year?

-Well, I was just in Canada about three weeks ago.

And we were there in some of the middle of this conversation going on, so I'm sure that tainted the conversation a little bit.

But you can see that the fact that this has gone on for over a year and a half is kind of wearing on folks.

Last year when I was there, it was, Oh, you know, we'll get through this.

This will be fine.

We're friends.

It's, you know, We'll work it out.

They still believe that and know that, but they're tired of it, too.

We were-- We only get international visitation information once a year.

I mean, it's an official number.

We were surprised that it was only down 17.5% last year.

I think it has deteriorated some again this year.

You know, we get indications from the airport, from the hotels.

So, you know, credit card spending.

So we have some indication of what visitation from all over looks like.

And I think Canada is probably down a little more.

-As a result, perhaps, of being worn out?

Do you think that's how that would manifest itself?

-There is a certain portion of the population in Canada that doesn't feel like it's the right thing to do to come to the United States.

They're angry.

They want to show that, so they're taking a stance.

And we understand that.

And our message to them has always been, We love you.

We're more than friends.

And we're making Vegas even better.

While you're not coming, we're here when you're ready.

Let us know.

-How do you know whether those trips were successful?

Because since the last time we had you on, you have taken two trips there about a year apart.

-Yep.

It's hard to tell at some level, but it's also necessary to do.

You know, it is a huge source of visitation for us.

And every touch, every time we touch our customers-- and when we go, we talk to tour operators and travel agents and the airlines, and we get them all together and hear, you know, what their customers want, what they are thinking.

All of those things are important to us, and it's important for them that we show up and be there and hear what they have to say, and then respond to that.

And so it's important that we do it.

You know, we don't really measure it by how many room nights we booked on that trip, and so it's, you know, it's a little nebulous, but it's clearly something that we need to do.

-And were you doing that as an annual trip prior to the friction between Canada and the United States?

-We do two trade sales missions to Canada a year, one to the western part of Canada and one to the eastern part of Canada.

We've done that every year for longer than I have been with the LVCVA.

-Okay.

So then did your approach change as a result of the friction, and were there any changes between this most recent trip and then the one you took last August in 2025?

-Yeah.

I think what's changed is that we've turned a portion of these trips into kind of a listening tour.

We need to hear.

I mean, prior to the last couple of years, this was, Hey, we've got all these great things going on in Las Vegas; sell these to your customers.

We'd still do that, and we'd tell them everything that is great in Las Vegas, all the new reasons to come that they need to then turn around and broadcast on our behalf.

But over the last couple of years, it's been, Okay, so tell us what we need to hear.

Tell us how we might need to message.

Tell us what your customers are telling you.

-What stands out to you from that listening?

-Well, it is largely around the concern that Canadians have about the way they feel the United States is treating them right now.

And that's real.

It is palpable, and it's in the room.

And it's like it is in the United States, interestingly; it is not a homogenous view, so the different parts of Canada that feel differently about this.

And so understanding where there's more opportunity right now is important.

Hearing what demand looks like from the airlines while we're there is an important part of this.

We work with vacation packages with, you know, Air Canada and WestJet and Porter and others.

So all of those things are a part of those trips.

-Okay.

As for international tourism to Las Vegas in 2025, that was down 4.8%, but that was part of a national trend as well.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, in 2025, foreign visitation to the U.S.

fell 5.5% even though 80 million more people traveled internationally.

Why do you think international visitors chose to go elsewhere besides the U.S.?

-Sure.

Well, a big portion of that is Canada and what we just talked about.

When we look at an international trip in particular--and you know this if you've traveled internationally--the journey starts when you leave your door.

It needs to be as easy to, you know, take a full day trip or maybe longer as possible.

And so you need to have easy access to a visa.

It needs to be not cost prohibitive.

We've added $250 to visa fees.

If a family of four wants to come, in order to just make the decision they have to write a $1,000 check.

That's not helpful at all.

You need to feel welcome.

You need to feel safe.

You need to feel all of those things in order just to make the decision to take the trip.

And then if we're, you know, friends but fighting, it's not maybe where you would first look to come.

You may save that for some other time.

You've been here; you're not going to do it right now.

So in a number of ways, we're discouraging folks from making the decision to come to the U.S.

and to come to Las Vegas.

-And so I think that was part of the purpose of this group of travel and hospitality executives going to the White House recently.

-Right.

-The goal from the CEO of the U.S.

Travel Association, he told the President he wants to get 100 million international tourists to the U.S.

every year.

For some context, in 2025 there were 68 million.

So that would be a big jump.

Bill Hornbuckle of MGM Resorts was there, and he said, "If we're going to meet that goal," he said this to the President, "we need your help; we need your direct involvement, and we know we can make this better."

Did he talk to you ahead of time about the messaging he'd be getting across there?

-Yeah, Bill did.

And you know, Bill is the chairman this year of U.S.

Travel.

And so he-- You know, we're proud that Las Vegas is representing the entire country internationally through Bill, and there's no better representative than Bill.

Bill was on the trade mission with me to Canada, so we talked about it there.

And the World Cup was a great example of how to do it right.

And you saw the reaction from everybody who came to the World Cup.

I mean, it was just, people were thrilled.

They didn't have any idea the United States had all these things to offer, and you saw, you know, folks in Boston drinking beer to the point they were out of beer.

You saw them eating barbecue in Texas to the point they were out of barbecue.

You know, they just got to experience the fact that we are a welcoming destination, we are a welcoming country.

We have so many different things to offer, and the President loved that.

And so the idea that we can expand on that experience, and, Okay, what worked there?

And let's make that work every day for every visitor that wants to come to the United States.

We can do that.

It's not hard to do.

And so the administration's involvement in making that happen is critical.

And I thought U.S.

Travel did a great job of delivering that message.

-What's your level of confidence that anything will change?

-Well, I don't really know.

I think uncertainty has been kind of omnipresent over the past, you know, 20 months or so.

And at some level--and they've, you know, the administration's talked about this--it's part of a strategy, too.

And not-- It's not travel focused, but it has a travel impact.

And so bringing some certainty to those programs, into that experience, into the message that we welcome visitors, has to happen before it's really going to recover.

-If you could get one wish in terms of federal policy surrounding travel right now, what would it be?

-I mean, it's certainty.

Now, that's a bunch of different topics.

-That's a good one.

-But knowing what the policies are and knowing that they're going to be fairly enforced and they're not going to change, and, frankly, some of them need to be reduced.

I mean, the cost of a visa right now internationally is a real issue for us.

-Some of the other policies you're talking about, have they been in flux, not set?

-Well, the administration has announced some things.

U.S.

Travel has done a really good job of convincing them that holding off on the implementation of some of them is a good idea.

You know, we announced that we were going to ask for five years of your social media history to let you into the country.

U.S.

Travel has prevailed and paused that.

We'd like that to go away permanently and not just be in this pause mode.

Things like that that bring uncertainty.

You know, it's you're not quite sure.

If you're looking to book a trip overseas, you plan it out ahead.

You need to know what all of those things are going to cost, what you're going to have to go through in order to come.

-And I've been interested in your perspective on this.

That video that a lot of people saw from Harry Reid International Airport of an Australian man, 57 years old, being tackled kind of to the ground by ICE officers who were wearing regular clothes, not in uniform.

The Department of Homeland Security said he had long overstayed his visa.

What did you think when you saw that video?

How big of an impact can that have on tourism?

-Well, that image isn't helpful.

I mean, I don't-- I don't know the situation.

I don't know if that was exactly what was necessary or not.

But absent that, that went viral.

And the, you know, the concept or the need to feel welcome and safe is brought into jeopardy or jeopardized by the imagery of that, so it isn't helpful.

But I, you know, I don't know enough to have a comment on the specifics of the event.

-Okay.

Let's move to affordability now.

When you were here August last year, you talked about the LVCVA doing a deep dive into the value proposition of Las Vegas, how much of a value Las Vegas is in your opinion.

And what came of that?

-Well, you know, when you do something like that, you get a broad perspective from our customers.

One of the things that we saw and we continue to see is that the folks who come, their expectations are either exceeded or met.

And there, the majority exceeded.

And so the combination of those two high-end responses is 95%.

It's the same level or better than we have ever seen.

And so satisfaction remains really high, which is a real beacon of the potential for getting back to record numbers in the future when people feel more comfortable traveling.

We have an offering for every budget.

What we saw in that survey--and, you know, it's been talked about a lot, and it's basically been a year since it's been talked about a lot--was people felt surprised by pricing at times along the way, where it didn't match what they thought their stay was going to cost.

It wasn't the room.

It wasn't necessarily the meal.

But it was the drink by the pool or the bottle of water that became infamous, those kinds of things, that I think the properties have largely addressed.

The other thing we saw, and the properties have really done this, is that all-in pricing for budget-conscious travelers is important.

And it's not something that Vegas has typically offered, and that changed.

And now they're, you know, for more budget-conscious travelers.

And actually some, throughout the entire spectrum, you can buy a package stay.

And you're going to get meals, and you're going to get entertainment, you're going to get a room.

And you can add to that if you want to, but you don't need to.

And so you have price/cost certainty.

And that was important, and the properties stepped up and did that.

-Okay.

According to the Las Vegas visitor profile from 2025, there was a marked increase in high-income visitors.

Does that indicate anything to you about affordability?

-It does, because, you know, as you think about that math, we saw a reduction in the number of visitors.

We did not see a reduction really in the number of higher income visitors.

And so we-- The visitors that, for the most part, that we didn't see were the more budget conscious, the more-- the folks who are concerned about the cost of the necessities in life.

And it makes it harder for them to make the decision to come to a discretionary destination like Las Vegas is.

And so all of those statistics really line up with what we know and have talked about; it's a K-shaped economy.

The folks on the bottom leg of the K are concerned, having to hesitate, aren't traveling as much.

We see it here.

We see it across the country.

-What have you done to market directly to that more budget-conscious visitor?

-Sure.

Well, and it's largely around what we talked about in terms of, in terms of the value proposition.

-All-inclusive packages?

-Yeah, there's all-inclusive packages.

I mean, you can get some pretty unbelievable room rates today in Las Vegas, and you can come here on any budget.

And that's the message that we're trying to get across to them.

That's for sure, because there is something for them here that they can feel comfortable saying yes to.

-Can you return to those record level numbers that you want without a budget friendly consumer?

-From a pure visitor count, the answer to that would be no.

You know, the properties that cater to higher income visitors are seeing the records still, very high occupancy rates.

Their, their business is great.

But we need to fill the rooms that are not full right now, and that is, that's a budget conscious traveler.

-Another hit to the affordability of Las Vegas was the shutdown of Spirit Airlines, the budget airline.

Can you comment on how impactful that has been?

-Yeah.

It has had-- It's not that we lost the seats necessarily, because the airlines will respond to the demand and have.

Spirit was the No.

2 airline at Reid, and so they were a big presence.

But the seats that we have lost have been backfilled more than 50 percent already and to the extent that there's demand, the airlines will respond to that.

We didn't lose many direct connections.

We had 174 direct connections prior to Spirit's shutdown.

We're at 171.

We lost three small cities that our only connection was Spirit.

We lost some more that our only connection was Spirit, but other airlines stepped in and said, Oh, that's an opportunity; we're going to take it.

What has really made a difference in Spirit leaving is they were a very low-cost carrier.

They were causing the price of airline tickets to be below what they are now because Spirit's not there.

And so we have seen airline prices jump 22% since, on average, in and out of Las Vegas since Spirit left the market or left flying.

And that doesn't get replaced.

And the airlines are telling us that demand has not changed even though pricing is up 22%.

That seems unlikely to remain the case to me.

It just, you know, it's hard to pay more.

-Well, and fuel prices must play a part in that, too.

-Well, certainly.

And fuel prices are a part of the reason that the prices go up or maybe a big part with Spirit leaving at about the same time.

But if fuel prices drop, I don't think you'll see an immediate drop in the price of flight, because they don't have to.

And I completely get that.

It's a competitive market.

They see, you know, the opportunity to hold those prices.

So I think to some extent they will.

And I think it will have an impact that we'll have to overcome on the demand side.

-Back to that 2025 Las Vegas visitor profile, it found that there were increases on spending for sporting events and paid attractions.

The sporting events, of course, Allegiant Stadium plays a big role in that, home of the Raiders.

And the Raiders recently requested and received approval from you as chairman of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board for $75 million in public funding to go toward the renovation of the north entryway at Allegiant Stadium.

How do you justify spending that amount of public money on a stadium that's only six years old?

-Well, let's talk about the public money part of that first.

We didn't raise any taxes.

It's the 7/8 of a percent of room tax that we raised 10 years ago during the 2016 legislative session with this in mind, so it was a part of what was approved during that legislative session and what was intended for this money at the time and all along.

The idea there-- and you see this in other stadiums across the country where they build a stadium and it immediately starts to deteriorate.

And you look up in 20 years, and the team says, I don't want to play here anymore.

You're going to have to spend public money to upgrade the stadium.

And so that was really the concept then, that we would share with the Raiders in the cost of upgrades and maintenance of the stadium.

Now, in that, in addition to that 75 million that we are putting in, that is a part of that 7/8 of a percent of a room tax, which is public money but not really paid by Nevadans.

The Raiders are putting in an additional 85 million or so, because it's a $160 million project.

And we, the public, is, through the Stadium Authority, will own that.

The Raiders will be responsible for maintaining that, and the stadium will help them with that.

At the root of that, though, is, you see how many football-- covered football stadiums are being built in cities that are going to be competitive with us?

Denver's building them.

Nashville's getting ready to open one.

Kansas City's building.

Washington, D.C., is building.

There are like five competitive stadiums going up, and Allegiant Stadium has become critical to maintaining the tourism economy in Southern Nevada.

And so creating a better experience for our attendees there, Rideshare will be covered now, it'll be under under that whole entryway so that, you know, it's a much better experience than it is right now.

All of those things really matter.

-You could have used that money to help pay off the $750 million that was used of public funding from the hotel room tax.

Why not go that route?

Same as what we just told me?

-Sure, yeah.

Well, we don't think the benefit is anywhere near as great.

We could pay the bonds off a little early.

We will benefit from that only once the bonds are completely paid off.

We can't buy down the rate.

We've made a commitment, and it's in the law that that 7/8 of a percent of revenue stays in place until the bonds are completely paid off.

It would impair the bond covenants that we signed.

We told the people who bought those bonds we will collect that tax until you're paid off.

So about 18 years from now, we would see the price of the room dropped by about $1 and a half if we use that money to do that.

And instead, we're going to have a greater experience.

We're going to maintain Allegiant's status as the No.

1 stadium in the United States.

We thought that was a pretty easy choice to make.

Those are the only two ways that we are allowed to use that money.

-And Allegiant Stadium is going to be hosting the College Football Playoff next year, the Super Bowl in 2029, and then the NCAA Men's Final Four in 2028.

2028, that is also when the A's Stadium is set to open.

Is that still on track?

-Going to be the same week as the Final Four.

That's going to be quite a week in Southern Nevada.

The Final Four is on the 1st and the 3rd of April, and we're going to have to work with Major League Baseball to make sure that they don't open the season the same weekend, because we really don't want to do that.

-No?

-So-- -That would be crazy!

That'd be-- -Well, it will, but we might as well get two weekends out of this.

-I see.

-So these are the weekend before, the weekend after, and then do the Final Four that weekend.

That's going to be a pretty historic beginning to April for sure.

-The last topic, though, is that the Bally's Hotel and Casino that's supposed to be built next to A's Stadium, that's not on track anymore, or what-- When will that open?

There is concern about the financial structure of Bally's at the moment, that they may be overextended.

They have a lot of projects going on.

-Yeah, no, that's right.

And from a Stadium Authority perspective, that's not really in our jurisdiction.

That's the County's responsibility for the development around the stadium.

What we do have is some certainty that Bally's, in partnership with GLPI, which is the landowner, the REIT that owns the land, are going to build the infrastructure needed on that northwest plaza to make sure that the stadium is operational, that the experience getting into the stadium is great, and everything is there for opening day.

-Okay.

For the stadium, but we still don't know about-- -The development, yeah, is just really not our jurisdiction.

-Okay.

All right, fair enough.

Steve Hill of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Anytime.

Thanks, Amber.

-And thank you for joining us.

For any of the resources discussed, including links to the latest research from the LVCVA, go to vegaspbs.org, and we'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

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