Las Vegas’ business elite gave the bad and the good of expectations for 2018 and beyond Friday.
About 2,000 business leaders gathered at the Thomas &Mack Center for the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce’s annual Preview Las Vegas event. Here is a recap of the highlights.
Tourism: The bad
Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Rossi Ralenkotter blamed a 1.7 percent decrease in annual visitors to the Las Vegas Valley in part on the Oct. 1 shooting.
He also credited a strong U.S. dollar for the decrease.
The valley saw 42.2 million visitors in 2017, fewer than the 43.2 million visitors predicted earlier on, he said.
Ralenkotter expects 42.7 million visitors this year.
Tourism: The good
Clark County saw $3.44 billion in taxable retail sales in October 2017, a 3.8 percent increase year over year, with a large percent of those sales from tourist spending, RCG Economics’ John Restrepo said. The county hit a 10-year low in October 2010 with about $2.3 billion in taxable retail sales.
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