As Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport welcomed the first transatlantic visitors inward 20 months this week, a new study predicts that visitation next twelvemonth testament live close-fitting to pre-pandemic levels. In 2023, they could advantageously exceed them, the written report suggests.

The analysis, from the University of NV Las Vegas Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER), speculates that the “significant rebounds” of 2021 testament live followed by littler increases in 2022 and 2023.

The written report posits that 2023 could live healthier than 2019. That’s because of unexampled attractions that did non survive 2 years ago, such as the Allegiant Stadium. It’s also blackball the outgrowth of a extremely contagious unexampled variant with the power to evade vaccines.

International Travelers Spend More

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) has pinned visitation for 2021 to Sept at 22.7 million. That’s 28.7 percent depress than it was for the corresponding full stop inward 2019.

But the urban center should finish the twelvemonth strongly, with a 66 percent gather in visitor numbers over 2020. That’s because casinos were either closed or operating at restricted content for large parts of that year.

The final quarter testament benefit from the resumption of international flights, as intimately as the takings of convening stage business to the city, a trend which began inward the fall.

International visitors make upwards around 15 percent of Las Vegas’ boilers suit visitation. But they spend 50 to 60 percent more money than domestic help travelers, according to the LVCVA. And they rest longer.

Infrequent Flyers

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the LVCVA was on paw at McCarran airdrome on Mon with a Greek chorus of showgirls to recognize the world-class transatlantic flight of steps since March 2020.

That’s when then-US President Donald Trump imposed journey restrictions to limitation the spread of the coronavirus on non-US citizens from o'er 30 countries. These included the EU states, the UK, China, India, South Africa, Iran, and Brazil.

Under the young rules, foreign visitors must demo proof of vaccination before flying, and must mental testing negative for COVID-19 within threesome days of traveling.

The 1st inbound flight to Las Vegas on Monday arrived from Greater London Heathrow. Many were visiting folk members from whom they had been spaced for almost 2 years, according to several local intelligence reports. Others were inwards town to hang the IMEX America switch show up that begins Tuesday at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

UK residents are the third-most haunt strange visitors to Las Vegas, after those of Canada and Mexico.

New Normal: More Normal Than Old New Normal

The easement of restrictions represents another tread towards normalcy for Las Vegas and its rebounding tourism industry. And “normality” may also tight a cold-shoulder magnetic inclination inwards gaming revenues for casinos, which make this year witnessed the good wallop of pent-up demand.

Gaming revenue has been achieving tape highs, regular though visitor intensity hasn’t been as [strong],” UNLV economic science professor Sir Leslie Stephen Miller, author of the CBER report, told CDC Gaming Reports Tuesday.

“People experience been gambling more. That play pass per visitant has gone dotty during the pandemic. It’s fallen back down, but relieve higher than it was before the pandemic. If anything, it mightiness go game land a bit,” he added.