According to a report released by the travel website Orbitz, Las Vegas McCarran International will see more travelers than any other domestic airport. We jumped 10 spots from last year’s list.

Second on the list is New York’s La Guardia followed by Chicago O’Hare.

And, for the second year in a row, Las Vegas also ranked as the number one desination for the Christmas Holiday, followed by Orlando and New York.

Bring on the tourists Santa!

Most of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s numbers were still heading in the wrong direction in July. The only positive number in this month’s report was a small increase in convention goers (up 0.6 percent) and total number of conventions held (up 8.9 percent). Sadly the economic impact from these increases was actually 3.7 percent lower than July of last year.

Gaming revenue was especially hard hit, falling 15 percent for Clark County as a whole.

The average daily room rate in Las Vegas fell 10 percent to $105.97. The year to date average fell 6.6 percent to $126.51.

(All figures are year over year comparisons)

Total passenger traffic in July was just over 3.9 million as compared to nearly 4.3 million in July of 2007. Out of the top five carriers servicing McCarran, only American Airlines was able to eek out a gain in passengers with a 3.6% growth over last year. Southwest fell 5.6%, United was down 8.9% and US Airways suffered the largest percentage drop at 17.3%.

A new survey says that Las Vegas is among the top 40 best cities in which to live. Best Life Magazine ranks Las Vegas as the number 32, behind number 31 — Reno. Researchers used a variety of criteria for the study of 257 cities, including information from the FBI and the U.S. Census Bureau. Honolulu ranks as the top city to live in. Clarksville, Tennessee ranks at the bottom of the list.

Ridership on the Las Vegas Monorail is off to a better start this year, with first quarter seeing an increase 19 percent over the first three months of 2007. The numbers are also better than 2006, but still below the 2.3 million rider level in the first quarter of 2005.

Total revenue for the first quarter was $7,346,743.

Read the complete press release here | Search the LasVegasNOW.com archives for Monorail articles

While the January report looked like an indication that tourism traffic may be softening, the February numbers at McCarran airport helped ease fears that Las Vegas blew that fear out of the water. Passenger traffic in MCarran rose 3.2 percent from February 2007 to February of this year, with over 3.5 million people arriving and departing Las Vegas. The February surge put the city back on track for passenger growth for the year, albeit a small 0.2 percent increase for the year to date. All eyes will be on the March numbers to see of the growth can continue.Read the entire report: McCarrans’ February Passenger Report (pdf)

It seems that the Strip, while not completely immune, is doing its best to weather the current economic downturn, according the a report released today by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.  Impacting the numbers was a decrease in the number of rooms available to fill, due in part to the closing of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino. Overall, Las Vegas January visitor volume fell by 0.6-percent. This modest decrease came despite the fact that convention attendance was down over 100,000 people, or -13.1 percent.

Gaming revenue on the strip was down by about $8 million, and was down 4.1-percent for Clark County as a whole. The county-wide visitor numbers were dragged down by softness in Boulder City, Laughlin and Mesquite. However, there was one bright spot for casino operators in Mesquite, as although visitor volume wasd down 5.4 percent, those who did make the trip appeared to spend more per-capita. The city’s gross gaming revenue rose 25.9-percent to just over $13 million.

By Jonathan Humbert.For the second year in a row, Las Vegas has been named the fattest city in America by Men’s Fitness Magazine. We’ve been called a lot of things in our time. Sin City. Fat City. And the city of lights. Well, one out of three ain’t bad. (more…)

It was a busy year at Las Vegas’ air transportation hub in 2007. Nearly 47.7 million people flew in or out of McCarran International last year, making 2007 the airport’s busiest in record. The number of passengers appeared to wane towards the end of the year, however, as the numbers of travelers fell 3.2  percent from December 2006 to December 2007.

That figure is about 900,000 higher than 2006, but was still not enough to get the Las Vegas Monorail Co. into the black, according to a story today published by the Associated Press. With 22,000 riders a day during the last three months of the year, the monorail generated about $77,000 per day – however, the system needs 34,000 riders and $123,000 a day to break even.

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