Las Vegas shakes, rattles business model
to draw back tourists
Sarah Downey | April 17, 2026
You can’t always bet on a full house so always be ready to adapt — that’s likely the message Las Vegas is getting after the number of visitors fell last year. The national news has been filled with dire reports of the city’s future, with reasons for its flagging fortunes ranging from a slowing economy, reduced U.S. travel from other nations, and tourists who are fed up with price-gouging. But while Las Vegas is a unique city, its attempt to deal with its malaise offers lessons to cities that find themselves too invested in one particular industry.
Perhaps the slowdown wasn’t wholly unexpected due to the record surge for the 2024 Super Bowl, the first ever held in the land of neon lights. But as Vegas looks to recoup some losses in visitor volume, big-time resort owners are trying the once unimaginable concept of almost all-inclusive deals.
Frankly, the one-time mecca of budget-friendly stays had tarnished its must-experience reputation in recent years amid $30 bottles of water, $40 parking and mountains of outrageous fees. The Federal Trade Commission implemented its nationwide crackdown on hidden “junk fees” last year, but it’s hard to say if the transparency rule had anything to do with the falloff in Vegas visitors.
What matters now is business community recognition that what was going on wasn’t working. Not keen to double down on failed policies, operators of some of the biggest names on the Strip seem open to testing a different business model.
This past January, Vegas drew 148,000 people to the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), up 4% from 2025, the most attendees since the pandemic. But whether that becomes part of a bump or turnaround isn’t yet known.
The present trend is that visitor volume has been in slow decline for two years, Stephen M. Miller, professor of Economics at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas, and Director of Research at the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER), told the Free Cities Center. “Since February 2024 it’s been down — the Super Bowl was in that month and that inflated the number of visitors and spending on hotel rooms, on food and beverages, and all the stuff that goes into leisure and hospitality,” Miller said. “I know that the [resort] owners are concerned.”
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said the total drop-off was 7.6%, from 41.7 million in 2024 to 38.5 million in 2025. Hopefully, reality has set in. UNLV’s Miller isn’t convinced that businesses have taken enough action in what’s been called a “K-shaped” economy during and after COVID. “Visitor volume is going down but total spending is up,” Miller added.
“There are various ways owners could offer incentives to visitors to come,” Miller said. “The owners need to spend a bit more time realizing people are not coming to Vegas because they don’t view it as low cost anymore.”
Every basic might have some extra charge tacked on from the pool to Wi-Fi to water. A downtown resort started going all-inclusive in late 2024, and the biggest resort operators on the Strip slowly got the message. This March saw week after week of new hotel packages rolling out. At least two of the major players haven’t forgotten to include free valet parking.
A recent report from the UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research shows that business confidence nearly doubled, from a 50.5 rating in Q4 2025 to 94.4 in Q1 2026. “This recovery suggests that the pervasive pessimism among local business leaders has moderated from the previous quarter,” the report states.
Later this year, Qantas will begin flying direct from Sydney. Las Vegas can steal business and conventions from other cities that have crushing fees and regulations. Rising costs and union demands in Chicago helped draw the CES to Vegas in 1995. This year’s CES debuted the $600 million renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center, which was finished on schedule.
Beyond that, today Las Vegas posts high job numbers in advanced manufacturing, logistics and technology. There’s expansion in education and healthcare with construction of its first children’s hospital coming later this year.
And as the saying goes, it’s location, location, location. The California exodus has continually drawn people and companies over the border to Nevada, which is one of eight states without an income tax. With more inventory on the market compared to recent years, first-time home buyers have more leverage. Nor is luxury home demand waning as Vegas attracts more high-income residents, and hasn’t proposed taxing their wealth like California.
Recent new construction data shows the Las Vegas metro ranks 11th for building the most homes. And it’s much more affordable overall to live in Vegas than, say, Los Angeles, where it costs twice as much to buy a single-family home.
In terms of budget balancing, there’s emphasis on belt-tightening over layoffs or adding new programs. Economic outlooks are stable, no credit downgrades. It helps that Las Vegas has expanded its commercial corridors beyond tourist attractions. Zappos moved in from Northern California and other high-tech companies have followed, drawn by the growth-oriented mindset.
By 2028, the Oakland A’s will belong to Las Vegas, along with one of the NBA’s two proposed expansion teams. The NFL’s Oakland Raiders came in 2020 and now play at the newly built Allegiant Stadium, funded in part by hotel room tax revenues.
The city is already betting on a Sports and Entertainment Improvement District (SEID), designed to sustain itself with tax revenue from the businesses within it. That includes the new A’s ballpark, being built on the Strip at the site of the demolished Tropicana Casino.
This is not an outlier. The concept of urban revitalization through mixed-use developments is gaining traction. Atlanta, Miami and Nashville are, like Vegas, wagering that sports, stadiums and the entertainment scene will be a 365-Day destination for new tourists and business. With the district’s location on the Strip, that could be the winning hand.