by Calculated Risk on 1/19/2015 01:38:00 PM

Just an update ... during the recession, I wrote about the troubles in Las Vegas and included a chart of visitor and convention attendance: Lost Vegas.

Since then Las Vegas visitor traffic recovered to a new record high in 2012, although visitor traffic was down slightly in 2013.

We only have data through November, but visitor traffic almost certainly set a new record in 2014.

However convention attendance is only returning slowly. Here is the data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.  

Click on graph for larger image.

The blue bars are annual visitor traffic (left scale), and the red line is convention attendance (right scale). 

Through November, visitor traffic in 2014 is running 3.5% above 2013.

Convention traffic is up about 1% from last year, and is still way below the pre-recession peak.  In general, the gamblers are back - and the conventions are slowly returning.

Note: I wonder if the previous convention peak in 2005 and 2006 was related to housing related meetings, like "How to Flip a House", "How to Buy with no money down", and "how to build a real estate empire by borrowing against your home and buying Las Vegas houses" type conventions!