Las Vegas is commonly known as the entertainment capital of the world. Sin City is best known for casinos and even if you play regularly at an online casino for real money, there is still something special about visiting a big casino in Las Vegas, such as the Bellagio. Thanks to the success of online gambling, some people have questioned if Las Vegas remains a major tourist attraction in the United States. Read on as we take a closer look at Las Vegas as a tourist destination.
Las Vegas Visitor Statistics
42.5 million people visited Las Vegas in 2019. This was before the problems we faced in 2020 and was a regular year in terms of tourism around the world. If we go back to 1970, the total number of hotel rooms in Las Vegas stood at just over 25,000 but in 2019, the number of hotel rooms stood at over 150,000. This shows the growth of Las Vegas over time, and it has developed over the past 50 years to become one of the world’s leasing destinations for tourists. If we look at the number of rooms occupied in 2019, figures show close to 90% of hotel rooms were occupied throughout the year and that number increased during weekends.
In 2020, visitor numbers dropped to just 19 million as all tourist destinations suffered. However, visitor numbers recovered in 2021 and over 32 million people visited Las Vegas, even though there were measures in place that made travel more difficult than previous years. So, the fact so many people chose to visit Las Vegas in 2021, when there were restrictions on travel, means it is still a major tourist attraction in the US.
Online Searches
Internet data is often an effective way to research the popularity of a product or place. If we take Las Vegas, estimated Google searches in the United States for February 2022 show 1 million people looked for ‘Las Vegas hotels. This number is significant because it is comfortably the largest number of people using this search term in Google for over 3 years. ‘Things to do in Las Vegas’ is another popular search term in the United States and in February 2022, there were roughly 110,000 searches for ‘Things to do in Las Vegas’. So, the volume of searches in Google within the US is increasing and that is a strong sign Las Vegas is still a major tourist attraction in the country.
New Attractions in Las Vegas
Las Vegas is known for casinos, resorts, entertainment, and restaurants but there are many other attractions. A sign of a place in decline would be if attractions are closing but the opposite is happening in Las Vegas. For example, in 2023 the Museum of Illusions will open on the Las Vegas Strip. Construction of the museum is underway, and it will occupy over 15,000 square feet. It will be the biggest Museum of Illusions in the United States and shows how Las Vegas continues to draw not only visitors but businesses to the city.