Sin City is on a solid track to keep the momentum and continue its own trend of breaking the visitation record each year: this was the case for the past three years, with numbers of annual visitors rising steadily. In 2015, 42.3 million people had visited the gambling capital of the planet and a year later, that figure went up to 42.9. According to a Las Vegas Review Journal report, eclipsing 2016 will be a difficult feat, for at the moment the number of visits is trailing by 1.1% compared to figures from the same period last year.
During the first nine months of 2017, Vegas was visited by 32.11 million people – 360.578 less than in the same period in 2016. Projecting this trend, this means that (assuming influx of people remains steady in accordance with the first three quarters) by the end of the year, the final outcome of people having visited the city will be 42.4 – narrowly beating 2015, but not even close to topping 2016.
Las Vegas Review Journal points to one factor that may be decisive when it comes to a new record setting in: these figures accounted for visits until September 30th – one day prior to horrific mass shootings in Mandalay Bay that left 58 people dead and 546 injured.
One might argue that venues and locations are at their safest right after terrible events such as these happen: the security levels are risen to the max and crimes are never repeated twice at the same location, especially not at the short space of time. While that may be correct and rational way of thinking about it, in human psyche the immediacy of threat and fear associated with the place is very much alive. Hence, some Las Vegas resorts like Tropicana Las Vegas had to cancel 30% of reservations following the mass shootings and places like Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino and Flamingo Las Vegas, property of Caesars Entertainment Corporation, also saw a huge drop in reservations, particularly from Asia.
Whatever the visitation outcome may be, here's hoping that Vegas authorities are much more focused on improving security measures and preventing events like the mass murder of innocent people from ever happening again. We are confident that they are and that Vegas will regain its reputation of a place where tourists and people in general are kept from harm.
Source:
“Las Vegas May Break 2016 Visitation Record”, Velotta Richard, reviewjournal.com, 4, 2017.
