by Calculated Risk on 5/13/2015 12:04:00 PM

Another 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 2014.

We only have data through March, but visitor traffic is slightly below the 2014 pace so far.

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 March, visitor traffic in 2015 is running 0.3% below 2014.

Convention traffic is up about 2% from last year, and is still way below the pre-recession peak.  In general, the gamblers are back - and the conventions are slowly returning.

It seemed like there were many housing related conventions during the housing bubble, so it may be some time before convention attendance hits a new high.