Visitor volume was up slightly in Southern Nevada in August compared to last year, thanks primarily to conventions that were here this year and not in 2011 and an uptick in auto traffic from California.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported 3.3 million visitors for the month, a 1.5 percent increase over August 2011. For the eight months of 2012, volume is up 1.8 percent to 26.7 million people.
LVCVA officials said convention attendance was up 15.9 percent to 478,522 for the month. The DeafNation World Expo brought 23,000 people to the city this year, and the Orgill Fall Dealer Market, which hadn’t met in Las Vegas for five years, returned with 15,000 attendees.
While traffic at McCarran International Airport was up minimally — a 0.3 percent increase to 3.6 million passengers — the average daily auto traffic at the California-Nevada border was up 6.4 percent to 49,340 vehicles for the month.
Californians making an inexpensive trip to Las Vegas also was reflected in occupancy figures. While overall citywide occupancy was down 0.1 percentage points, motel occupancy was up 4.5 points to 51.1 percent for the month.
The average daily room rate also inched over the $100 mark with the average rate up 5.1 percent to $102.09 for August.
The August increase was a rebound from July, when visitation was off 0.8 percent, a figure attributed to the Fourth of July being at midweek this year instead of near the weekend as in 2011.