LAS VEGAS — The top tourism official in Las Vegas says the city hasn’t priced out regular travelers, even as July visitor counts fell and casinos took in more from gamblers.
Steve Hill, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), said monthly figures can bounce around but argued the destination remains competitive at different price points.
“We’re not happy with the downturn but the city’s taking steps to address that,” Hill told reporters Friday.
Meanwhile casinos: “visitors aren’t coming so we’ll add more fees, charge $20 for a bottle of minbar water and put an extra 0 on the roulette wheel”
My company put us up a company retreat in Vegas.
Hotel rooms were gorgeous. But there was a incredibly sensitive minibar - with I fucking kid you not, $10 bottled water and $15 mini liquors.
I know that because they tried to charge me a $90 minibar fee. Even though I didn’t touch it. It was bogus, because half my company was charged these fees.
I didn’t pay anything and last I heard, the hotel dropped it all.
Americans can barely afford to live with constantly increasing prices, and foreigners get illegally arrested and deported. Who’s left to visit Vegas, except maybe Leisure Suit Larry?
i used to follow some asian ytubers that bought into the nevadas no-tax income and moved there, it was hilarious how they thought all the same thing in LA; culture, doctors, schools were not the same quality as in LV or nevada. and they would constantly bitch about cali, while thier base of operations is sitll in LA, because the rest of the “members” refused to moved to nevada.
Ironically I was there in mid August and there were lots of hispanic tourists, then some french. So many people from mexico that there were tijano bands on every street corner near the bellagio.
It’s dead to me.
I’ve been to las Vegas twice now, both times to visit friends there, and both times I went to the strip and yo some restaurants and both times were godawful. It is such a horrid place that shouldn’t even exist in the first place, and I have no idea what any tourist would like there apart from semi legal prostitution.
It’s a soul sucking place and if it were to die, I think that would be best for everyone, just leave that place.
Vegas sucks but it’s hilarious that Trump is literally bankrupting Vegas
Oh wow, I highly doubt anyone can bankrupt a bunch of casinos.
What sort of imbecile could do that! It’s pretty much impossible to bankrupt one casino let alone a bunch of them.
Next you’ll be telling me a reality TV ‘star’ who was best mates with a convicted human trafficking child rapist, who has been taking money from Russia for decades, will be president. Pfft, no population would ever vote that type of person in…TWICE.
trump was laundering money from russia through his CASINOS. i went to Alanta once in the early 2000s and saw his trump tower.
Many people are saying that he’s the bigliest at bankrupting casinos.
hes actually the final nail in the coffin, there were 3. the first one is vegas greed trying to cater to only rich people pricing “poorer” people out, 2nd is covid, and they are trying to stem the tide with building sports team facilities, hopefully to lure tourists back, and lastly trump has futhured reduced tourism.
but vegas was going to DIe anyways without trump, trump just accelerated it.
People with money can go to a lot of nicer places than Vegas (lie, say, just about anywhere else). Why go there? To see Wayne Newton?
Well he prototyped the casino failure “business” model in his younger days. It’s only logical that he’s spreading that acumen around now.
I could either buy dinner for $25 for basic restaurant food.
Instead, I chose to spend $20 to ride 1.2 miles (because it would have taken an hour walking across the highway) to get to In-and-Out.
As a Canadian there isn’t a chance in hell I’m crossing into the USA. It is far too dangerous for a number of reasons. I could end up in a MAGA death camp, detained for weeks (months?) or just randomly shot by their crazy gun-fucking citizens. I don’t know why anyone would go there.
Our household is also boycotting all US made products so it wouldn’t make sense to spend money directly in the US.
That’s definitely part of it. International visitors have collapsed and the consequences are felt by places like Vegas. But Vegas is fucking over domestic visitors too so it gets hit twice. The value proposition has completely disappeared.
People will make their own anecdotal gripes about Vegas, but the real reason is the Trump administration’s insane border and trade policies driving away international visitors as they fear getting arbitrarily detained or they actively boycott the US.
vegas has actually been dying for quite some time, and way before trump, trump and covid just accelerated everything. vegas was expensive even before the pandemic.
Annual visitation took a dip during Covid and afterwards but largely recovered as recently as 2024. Pre-Covid visitation was roughly 42+ million/ year. In 2024, there were 41+ million visitors. I think it’s true that prices have gone up, but haven’t seen any data. I’m not convinced that the expense is the driver of this trend though… possibly a brewing recession, but the biggest difference from last year is US policy.
This is it. My brother lives in Vegas and I’ve visited plenty of times and spent time walking the strip in the last couple months.
Way less people from other countries these days compared to last year. You can hear it when walking around town, now it’s just English and Spanish.
Spanish? Which ones?
— ICE
Relax, they’re white, it’s Spanish from spain
Even so.
– ICE
Definitely. I have international friends, we used to meet up in Vegas periodically because it was cheap/easy for me and somewhere they could go to do all the shopping, eating, etc. they wanted.
They aren’t doing that right now. And I don’t blame them.
people might as well go to disney at this point lol.
I mean the guys already managed to bankrupt a casino in the past, so he’s just added the challenge of trying to bankrupt the whole consortium now!
Back in 2015, Warren Buffett was being interviewed by CNBC about the possibility of a Donald Trump win.
He kind of laughed at that notion, and the interviewer said “Why are you laughing? He’s a businessman like you”
Warren Buffett goes: “Every business he’s ever had, he’s run into the ground”
Then the reporter says: “Well, he’s currently leading the polls and slated to win”
I remember Buffett just kind of leaning back in silence, realizing what he said, understanding that the business Donald Trump “would be running” was the United States.
Buffet: (I need to diversify with foreign assets)
Not to mention targeting a lot of the help… no idea why attendance would drop.
Not to mention that people can’t afford anything because tariffs.
I can’t fucking afford to live in my own hometown, how the fuck can I afford visiting there?
Have you considered debt?
Maybe you could afford to visit if you gambled away your life savings until you struck it big.
And it got more expensive to visit, flights are more expensive, I was supposed to have that high speed rail by now but thats not coming anytime soon if ever lol, the drive is a chore no matter what and im within reasonable driving distance (6 hours) It’s so mindless and without stops for long gaps. Then you get there and anything fun (for me, I like edm) costs more money to get in, and drinks are way overpriced. I’ve had friends get their car stolen, jumped walking around while seperated for 5 minutes, etc.
It’s just never that good a time, a few friends like gambling, I don’t so that effects it forsure lol, I thought it’d be more entertaining and budget friendly for general entertainment.
Saw a YouTube video. A can of beer taken in the casino minimarket was not priced on the shelf and rang at $20, with a $4 mandatory automatic tip to the cashier because he opened the can.
What’s this, a “we have Dubai at home” kind of scam?
Oh yeah, I’m willing to bet (lol) Vegas now looks to Dubai with envy, and tries to attract the same quality clientele (and slave labor!)
All the glitzy stuff is for the ultra-wealthy, family destinations are replaced with nightclubs, and everyone else gets to work for insulting wages to serve the foreign moneyed class.
Honestly it’s a shame the Strip feeds the rest of the city, because outside of that soulless, wretched hive of scum and villainy…the town is pretty alright, all things considered…
the same quality clientele
Scum with money? That quality?
dubai/SA, the UAE trying to stave off thier eventually dying economy(which oil/gas) extraction by invesitng in sports teams.
…Annnd Vegas is currently popping up yet another stadium for the A’s, after the Golden Knights, which are alright, and the Raiders, which nobody asked for or wanted.
Interesting.
I didn’t even know Vegas had family destinations. TV and movies made me think it’s only for young people on roadtrips and the wealthy.
So, I wanna stress the emphasis on used to. But it totally did.
Everyone who knows anything about this town claims it was much cooler when the mob ran it. Seriously! They were big on legacy and making cool stuff that wowed people and drew them to all the gambling and stuff. That was the era of free drinks at the slots and comped lobster dinners.
They weren’t dumb hedgies like the current stewards of the realm, they knew crap like, for instance, parking spaces that make more money than 98% of the staff per hour, was simply bad business.
Now, half of it is owned by Amazon and everything is about exponential stockholder returns. Like everything else in this Ayn Randian ultra-capitalist hellscape.
SO, what used to be cool?
There was a ton of really cool exhibits, free shows along the Strip, cheap buffets, and that kinda thing.
One of the oldest casino properties, Circus Circus, still has the Adventure Dome (although it’s sadly a shadow of its former glory days), and New York New York has a pretty fun (if massively overpriced) rollercoaster attached to a large arcade. The casino itself is old with cramped low ceilings and odd smells…
The Flamingo has a gorgeous botanical garden that hosts lots of pretty birds including, yes, flamingos.
The Mirage used to have Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden…with dolphins and tigers and stuff. It’s no longer around and it seemed very nice and ethical when we went, but I can’t remember if it closed after some kind of scandal or something…
Luxor used to have a walk-through Star Trek experience that modeled the set and everything, with actors walking visitors through an exciting short adventure aboard the ship. (I think the Borg were involved!)
…And they had a 3D motion ride tied to the TV show “ReBoot”. (Sadly didn’t get to experience either of these)
They still have that “Bodies” anatomy exhibit and one for the Titanic, which is actually pretty amazing.
“T.I” (barf) used to be “Treasure Island”, because it used to have big galleons parked in a lagoon up front, where you could watch pirates popping off flintlocks and swordfighting and swinging to board the rival ship every couple of hours.
Then they changed that to “Sirens of T.I” which was kinda the same thing, but “sexier” and less family oriented. (Think leather and more butt-cheek with whip cracking.) Sadly, the one time I was around for that, it was cancelled due to weather that could cause safety concerns with the pyro. :(
Now, the ships and water and ramparts and net rigging decor is all gone and it’s some cubular nightclub that has famous DJs sometimes and I can only assume hosts highway robbery at the bar, shady dealings, cocaine benders in the bathrooms, and the occasional hush-hushed drink drugging. You know, stuff for the NEW Vegas clientele.
Let’s see…Tropicana used to have a massive “volcano” go off and belch fire occasionally, that was neat! They got rid of that.
There was a massive candy store, “World’s Largest Coke Bottle” (I think it was an elevator). . .that still around? I dunno but it’s just shopping.
Inside Caesar’s Palace there used to be a GIGANTIC Trojan horse as part of the famouse F.A.O Schwartz (spelling?)Toy Store. It was massively overpriced but also just really really cool to check out anyway. It’s a gigantic H&M since I last saw it. Sans Trojan horse, replaced by weird hanging manaquins clad in shiny tight leather. (Sensing a theme…)
Excalibur is actually pretty rad still. Houses a large arcade and Tournament of Kings is a legit great time. It’s VERY cool. I’m glad it’s still there.
The Bellagio has a really cool art conservatory and their famous fountains, and the Wynn has pretty cool floral displays.
Also, Pinball Hall of Fame moved to a more central and much larger location. That place is GREAT fun with a cup of quarters!
But yeah, now almost everything is catering to night clubs, day clubs (which are basically everything wrong with nightclubs but now with pools and solar radiation), people forced to go to conventions for work, and big ticket shows run by the Ticketmaster / Live-Events-or-something cartels.
To see the current attitude that runs this place now, look no further than the fact they host the F1 here now, and hardly anybody who actually lives and works here has a snowball’s chance in, well, here, to go see it.
Also “The Sphere”, which is a slightly neat novelty eyesore that hosts concerts and crap for like $300 a ticket.
Man…sorry for the super long post, I didn’t think I had this much to say on the topic! LOL
I hope it was interesting though!
That was an incredibly interesting read and thank you for taking the time to write that! It seems like the entire place went from this unique experience to enshittified corporate garbage in the last 20 or so years. I mean, a giant H&M? That’s like the crappiest fast fashion brand in the world. I thought that city was more about luxury…
I wonder how the corporate fuckboys were able to muscle out the mob though. Is it because they had the money to pay the right people for stricter enforcement of the law?
Are you from Vegas? I was wondering what it’s like for locals there. I live in a touristy place of Japan (nowhere near the level of entertainment offered — or used to be offered — by Vegas) and while I appreciate that people from all over are interested in the little island I was born on, I can’t help but to resent how a chunk of it solely caters to outsiders. Everywhere I go now it’s tourist traps. I could move to a different part of the island I guess, but I was here first lol.
I remember learning about it a long time ago and thought it made no sense.
Then I went with a married couple who brought two kids and I still believe it even more. These college friends don’t drink, vape, weed, gamble and are basically non-religuous relugious people so it was a weird experience. We stayed in a casino hotel that allowed all of it, and we ended up only going to museums and dining… In the middle of a desert.
It’ll never be a definitive family destination.
Don’t you worry, the slave labour part is absolutely on the docket and this administration is working hard on making you work hard for them just so you can live in a leaky shack with 1 serving of gruel per day as payment. You can thank him later.
No shit, capitalism is out pricing tourism. What do you greedy fucks thought would happen when you create a funnel system for you?
It’s not just that. Foreign tourists don’t want to risk being detained at a US airport just so some ICE alphamale goon can meet his quota.
Anybody not white and goes to USA today should win a darwin award
They have, to my great surprise, even been harassing and detaining whites. I think there is typically a political slant to it, however. They can’t have nonracist and/or nonfascist whites coming through.
Some don’t have much of a choice. But yeah, for the volunteers, I agree.
There’s always a choice to travel to another country, especially a fascist one.
Have you heard of family? Yeah, sometimes they need help or are sick in a country that doesn’t provide healthcare and need taking care of.
“Not have a choice” means that no reasonable person could leave their loved ones to rot and die. So they take that risk. It’s “technically” a choice but no one uses that phrase to mean that.
Show some empathy.
Exactly this. People travel back to Russia and Iran and China all the time to take care of family. They don’t want to be in those countries but their family is stuck and they don’t want to see them die slowly, alone.
Family has to visit other family who’ve migrated to other countries all the time. Before now, the US was seen as a country people would very much want to be in, so there’s a lot of people in this situation here now.
Whites aren’t necessarily excluded, either. Even white males.
White privilege makes up for them becoming a victim. So not really perpetrated.
Uh, I’m not sure an ordeal like what this guy went through is something others are lining up for, privilege or no. He was detained by ICE for two months, so not quite sure where the white privilege came in…
There are no alpha humans. Those ICE goons are just angry, brutal racists let off their leashes.
Alpha: Not fully developed, prone the erratic behavior, not fit for the public to interact with…
Sounds accurate to me.
Ah, that kind of alpha! Nice one. Makes sense.
Vegas is so cooked.
Another thing harming tourism is the heat for sure. Very regularly over 110f in the summer and there is no shade at all on the strip. The actual concrete temp is easily hitting 120f.
Not to mention the city actually smells OF (not like) human shit. The sewers were never built to handle this many people and it’s not a problem anyone is willing to address or acknowledge.
i heard most of the hotels is stuck in the 90s, so im not surprised. CSI glorified the hell out LV.
Boycott everything in America. I say this as an American. It doesn’t get better for anyone here until it gets better for everyone out there. And the powers that be, need to come to terms with the fact that this is the way it’s going to be.
MAGAs unironically call Trump the God-Emporer, as in the God-Emporer of the Imperium of Mankind, but they ironically got instead the God-Emporer Leto II and sentenced us to the Golden Path - tyrannical aceticism, but also conditioning for a society.
Do we make it through a more resilient society, or do we get stuck in abject inequity for the foreseeable future.
Vegas used to be a pretty cheap destination for a vacation that saw a ton of profit from the sheer amount of people that funneled there.
It used to be that you would sometimes get buffet and drinks comped if you spent enough time gambling, and that incentive would keep you in that casino continuing to gamble instead of going to a different place. The cost of a buffet meal and a couple highballs was a small price to pay to keep someone at the tables for another couple hours.
Now(within the last 15 years), Vegas is leaning away from being the worldwide gambling destination and leaning more into fine dining and live shows. This has changed the entire economy there and everything is crazy expensive if you’re anywhere near the strip.
This is all to say nothing about the drop in tourism in general because you might just get assaulted when you enter the country by some twat from ICE if your skin is darker than a hotel towel.
vegas has been declining for the better part of the decade, covid+ tariffs/trump is just the final symptom before vegas completely fails. vegas think it can save itself by putting all the "sports’ stadiums in the city. they kinda knew thier industry is dying.
Vegas never interested me but I have friends who have talked about that shift. Even going somewhere other than a casino, food and entertainment used to be a bargain compared to other vacation destinations, including restaurants that were started by well known chefs. Now everything is at a premium, even more so than other places.
The cheap food and entertainment serves a purpose though. The underlying game Vegas plays with your psychology is to try to make you feel rich. If they can make the average person feel wealthy by giving them free drinks or letting them stay in a nice room, then they are more likely to spend big in the casino. All the marketing is designed around this too. Keep this in mind if you ever end up in Vegas. I was never really into Vegas myself until I went and learned the history. I can see the charm of it, I just don’t get carried away.
If they can make the average person feel wealthy by giving them free drinks
Alcohol removes inhibitions, so drunk people gamble more. No need to make them feel rich too.
apparently you are paying luxury prices, for basic cheap food.
Yup, the casino used to subsidize a lot of things. In all honesty you can still get free drinks but the threshold had climbed to where 20 bucks in the slots got you drinks to I don’t even know what now.
There are regulars who gets comped rooms, but it’s all based how much you gamble every year. So not a bargain.
The concept of rich fucks subsidizing non-rich like me was definitely a dying culture and now it sounds like this is completely dead. So yeah no way I’m paying full prices at Vegas - getting a good deal was the only point of travelling all the way to the middle of nowhere.
Vegas never really recovered properly from covid, but the current economic situation and the political climate aren’t helping either.
Vegas prices went through the roof post-covid, since people had extra money and were spend-happy. This caused price increases across the board, but it also drew the wrong people to Vegas, increasing crime and other problems.
And with the economy being what it is now, people aren’t willing to spend that much in Vegas. And international tourists are actively avoiding the US. Pre-pandemic, 20 percent of Vegas tourism was international tourists.
Vegas needs to cut prices so deeply that international tourists go ‘fuck it, we’ll go anyway’.
i somehow think vegas wont, because they are investing in building sports facilities hopefully to bring in those transient tourists back.
Vegas deserves to crash and burn. It shouldn’t exist.
Last time I was there, I swore that if I ever returned, I’d be driving a tank or a bulldozer.
Vegas thrives in two economic climates, when things are good, and when things are bad. In the middle gambling usually slows and Vagas is boring. When the trend pushes people to have a lot, they’ll gamble a lot because they can afford to lose. When the trend pushes people to have little, they’ll gamble away what little they have at the chance of a big payday. When things are sliding up and down that’s when people are more conservative with their money and rates of gambling decline. Not quite so broke they’re desperate, but not so flush with cash they’re reckless. Right now we’re kind of in a declining economic climate, but it hasn’t hit the bottom yet and generally people are uncertain if it will.
Plus it doesn’t help that tourists going to Vegas can be abducted and shipped away to a prison half way across the world before anyone at home would even notice.
gambling is so common everywhere else, and poeople dont need to go to vegas anymore, they can just do it on thier phones.
