Skift Take
The very highest spenders may have abandoned Vegas for Macau, but foreign visitor growth paired with on-the-ground developments will keep Vegas on track for more growth.
Las Vegas welcomed more visitors in 2014 than any year prior.
More than 40 million people arrived in Sin City this year, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority announced.
Aside from a global increase in travel, LVCVA CEO Rossi Ralenkotter credits the milestone to several renovated and rebranded resorts as well as an increase in direct international air service from Canada and Mexico.
In addition to the opening of SLS Las Vegas and the LINQ, Las Vegas stakeholders have continued to invest in smart marketing campaigns.
For example, LVCVA launched a new ad campaign in July targeting the meetings and convention market for the first time since 2008 and Caesars doubled down on its partnerships with movie studios and TV shows.
The value of appearing on the big screen was proven 10-fold with “The Hangover” and more resorts have waived or reduced rental fees in order to appear on screen.
Las Vegas recorded its previous annual tourism record in 2010 when 39,727,000 people visited the city.
The U.S. is also on track to reach record visitation in 2014. For the first nine months of 2014, the number of international visitors arriving in the U.S. increased seven percent year-over-year to 56.4 million.
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Tags: las vegas, skiftstats, usa
Photo credit: The Wynn Las Vegas is framed under a Las Vegas Boulevard street sign. Julie Jacobson / Associated Press