by Calculated Risk on 5/09/2018 02:31:00 PM

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 new record highs.

However, in 2017, visitor traffic declined 1.7% compared to 2016, but was still 8% above the pre-recession peak.

Convention attendance set a new record in 2017, but is off to a sluggish start in 2018. 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). 

Convention attendance was down 7.5% in Q1 2018 compared to Q1 2017.

Visitor traffic was down 1.6% in Q1 2018 compared to Q1 2017.

Historically, declines in Las Vegas visitor traffic have been associated with economic weakness, so the sluggish start to 2018 is a little concerning for the Vegas area.