The numbers of visitors to the desert casino resort town of Las Vegas, Nevada saw a decline in 2009. The touch economic times in the United States forced even those who could afford it to taper off their traveling and vacationing. Even when families and individuals did travel they spent less time and less money at their destinations. Las Vegas was hit particularly hard with this slowdown. They saw tourist numbers dip and gaming revenues fall. This forced most casino resorts to lower their daily room rates, and the rest of the dominos fell as one would expect to include convention and meeting bookings. It was a tough year for Las Vegas.

There does seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. The end of 2009 saw Las Vegas casinos and casino resorts. Some of the major casinos were able to work through some debt obstacles and posted small profits for the last quarter. While gambling revenues were still down, visitors started to return, and momentum started to build for 2010.

Initial reports point towards the momentum carrying in through the new year. It is being reported that visitor volume rose by 4 percent in January as compared to the same month a year ago. Kris Tibbs, who acts as a convention authority research manager stated that the increase was “…a positive sign for the destination,” but was cautious not to fully admit that Las Vegas tourism was seeing the complete turn around the casino resorts are hoping for.

Even though visitor numbers in Las Vegas rose, room occupancy at the casino hotels and resorts were still down a little from 71.9 percent to 71.1 percent. This coincided with the average room rate falling close to 5 percent. However, experts are not discouraged by this due to the fact that Las Vegas added more than 8,000 rooms last year.

The bad news is convention bookings and attendance was down during this period. While tourism is key for the casino resort industry, conventions held in Las Vegas feed all ares of the local economy. Most experts agree, though, that Las Vegas is suffering the same fate in this market as cities across the United States.

Tags: casino, gambling, online