Traffic on East Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Blvd. on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. (Jeff Scheid/The Nevada Independent) Good morning, and welcome to the Indy Gaming newsletter, a weekly look at gaming matters nationally and internationally and how the events tie back to Nevada.
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Gasoline prices are at record highs, but resort executives and tourism leaders aren’t sounding the alarm bells.
They’ve traveled down this road before.
Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Vice President of Research Kevin Bagger said Strip visitation has long weathered increases in fuel costs. But that historically hasn’t slowed traffic from Southern California along Interstate 15, which was up more than 2 percent in the first month of the year.
Still, Bagger said it was too early to determine if the current gas price increases have changed the travel plans for Las Vegas visitors.
“Over the years, there have been spikes in gas prices that historically haven’t had significant impacts on travel demand,” Bagger said in an interview earlier this month.
He said some of the feedback the tourism industry has received from Las Vegas visitors is that gas price spikes will cause people to adjust behaviors in their home life, such as carpooling more.
“It hasn’t necessarily affected trip decisions quite as dramatically,” Bagger said. “We are keeping an eye on it because inflation is at a level that we haven’t seen for quite some time.”According to AAA, gasoline prices in the Las Vegas Valley averaged almost $5.37 for a gallon of regular unleaded. While the figure is $2 a gallon higher than a year ago and up roughly $1.30 from a month ago, gaming leaders don’t foresee any slowdown in visitation.Nevada is second in the nation only to California for fuel price costs, with the Golden State averaging close to $6 per gallon.Boyd Gaming Chief Financial Officer Josh Hirsberg told attendees at a recent investor meeting organized by Truist Securities last week that the company’s casinos haven’t […]
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