I-15 at Stateline/Primm   Based on 2.6 occupants per vehicle, over 183,000 people came up I-15, headed into Las Vegas, on the days preceding Labor Day (August 31- September 1).  This was slightly under the total for last year.  Based on historical records, 80% of the 183,000 had Las Vegas as their destination.  The difference between the holiday period in 2007 and 2006 was about 6,000 vehicles.   With the hotels reporting strong occupancy over the weekends some of the drop off in traffic may be accounted for by a slow down in long distance travel.  The counters at State Line don't indicate how many travelers stop in Las Vegas and how many may be going beyond Las Vegas.   The traffic counters at Mesquite have been down since August.  Generally, the traffic at Mesquite is 20% below the count at State Line/Primm. There has been a general trend over the last four years for surface travel to become the rule for trips fewer than 300 miles.   For the remaining non-holiday weekends, northbound traffic on Friday/Saturday, the 7th and 8th, was even with last year; the 14th and 15th down 5%; 21st and 22nd down 4% and 28th and 29th down 6%.   The ranking of days with the heaviest traffic showed Sunday the heaviest followed by Friday, Saturday, Monday, Thursday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  This is the same pattern that occurred in September 2006 so apparently heavy days/light days are probably an evergreen pattern.  

  Laughlin, Nevada (SR163, Davis Dam Road)    The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) reported large drops in total traffic on this route in August.  Average Daily Traffic was off 16.7%, Weekday traffic off 10.9% and Weekend off 26%.  In contrast to this drop in traffic, Laughlin hotels reported stable occupancy in September. That is explained by the fact that this is not the primary route to Laughlin from Los Angeles.   The majority of passengers coming into Laughlin from California take the I-40 from Barstow to Needles exit or the River Road cutoff to Needles Highway Drive. For some time now, both California and Nevada have been improving this highway.  It is now four lanes most of the way.     Visitors from Arizona, coming in on Interstate 10, go up U.S. 93 and then cut west on Arizona 68 into Bullhead City and across the dam into Laughlin. As with the Needles Highway, there are no traffic counts available for this route.  

     U.S. 95 (Searchlight, .5 miles north of SR 164, Nipton Road)   There were also steep declines on this road nearly as high as those on Davis Dam Road.  Average Daily Traffic was off 12.6%, Weekday down 7.25% and Weekend down 20.8%.  This is an entirely different situation than with the traffic from I-40 on Needles Highway. The measurement on U.S. 95 is taken north of Searchlight and it is primarily traffic coming from Las Vegas into Laughlin or going east or west on I-40.    

GAMING REVENUE REPORT - AUGUST 2007   Downtown and Laughlin were the only Clark County venues showing improvement in win in August versus August 2006.  Downtown was up 1.1% with Laughlin up 1%.  Both locations increased their market share (percentage of statewide gaming win) with Downtown at 4.8% vs. 4.3% last year and Laughlin up to 4.9% vs. 4.5% last year.  Laughlin's gaming win in the trailing twelve months is up 9% while Downtown is still behind last year, down 1.2% in the past twelve months.    Although the Strip win was off 1% share improved to 55.3% vs. 52.3%.  Win on the Strip leads Clark County, up 4.5% in the trailing twelve months.  The win on the Strip lifted all locations in Clark County, up 4.2% in the trailing twelve months.  For the month, share for the County was down to 82.5% from 83.3% last year.  The state total was down 1% and up 3.7% in the trailing twelve months.    The increase or decrease in win done in the Briefing differs from the method used by the Gaming Control Board.  Our method uses simple arithmetic, taking the 2007 win divided by the 2006 win to get a percentage increase or decrease.  

    McCARRAN AIRPORT REPORT- AUGUST 2007   Total arriving and departing passengers for August was up 6%.  Year-to-date the passenger count is up 4.9%.  For the top five scheduled carriers, Delta led for the month with a 15.3% improvement (227,000 arriving and departing passengers), up 6.5% YTD.  Southwest continues to be the dominant carrier at 1.5 million in August, up 10.6% and 4.6% YTD.  U.S. Airways/America West was down 7.1% at 844,000, but up 98% YTD.  United continues to drop total passengers and showing a 5.5% decrease.  American Airlines is below 200,000 passengers so Continental Airlines has replaced American in the top five carriers, bringing in 177,000, for a 5% increase for the month and 4.9% YTD...  Scheduled carriers out of Terminal 1 continue to bring in 90% of the total passengers coming into McCarran.  

AMERICAN TRAVELERS TURNING GREEN, BUT NOT AT ANY COST  

  More than half of all U.S. adults say they would be more likely to select an airline, hotel or rental car that uses more environmentally friendly products, according to the results of the latest travelhorizons survey by the Travel Industry Association (TIA).   But while more than half of U.S. adults may be advocates of environmental responsibility, only 14% of respondents said their actual selection of a travel service supplier would be influenced by that supplier's efforts to preserve and protect the environment.  Just 13% would be willing to pay higher rates or fares to use suppliers who demonstrate environmental responsibility.  (Although fully 56% said they might.)    The amount of rate or fare premium appears to be the source of their hesitation: 76% would pay less than 10% more per usage (e.g., room night, airline flight, car rental, etc.); with the majority of respondents indicating they would pay less than 5% or more.   Apparently, travelers are willing to put only a limited amount of money where their mouth is.

 IMPROVEMENTS CONTINUE ON I-15   Following are updates from CalTrans and the Nevada Department of Transportation on continuing work on I-15.

•  Paving work is complete from State    Line/Primm to Sloan, Nevada
•     Rehabilitation of pavement and truck descending lane on the northbound I-15, 1 mile south of Bailey Road to Yates Well Road, near the Nevada state line will close the southbound I-15 truck-climbing lane.  There will be primarily nighttime closures.  This will take approximately 30 weeks. Construction is starting the fall of 2007. 
•       I-15 Barstow to State Line there will be new truck climbing lane just south of Baker and improvements on the existing interchange at Baker by adding a new bridge to make four lanes in each direction and reconfiguring the on and off ramps.  

 Other projects along I-15 will commence in 2008 and will stretch into 2010.  As predicted by CalTrans and NDOT several months ago, the construction on I-15 has been going on for 17 years and improvements will continue far into the future.

 LAS VEGAS VISITOR VOLUME - AUGUST  Visitor volume was up to 3.3 million, a 1% increase over last year.  The major contributor to the 1% increase was a 21.9% growth in convention attendance.  The casinos get less action from convention visitors than from free independent travelers, therefore, to compensate the hotels raise the daily room rate, which was up 8.4% in August.  This helps to compensate the hotels for the decrease in casino win.

 DISCOVER AMERICA.COM, COMING IN MARCH 2008 

   This is a new web site that will be the first ever "Official Travel and Tourism Web Site of the United States" and will feature information on U.S. states and territories, destinations, attractions, booking tools, a travel agent directory, official entry information and easy use and an interactive United States map.   In 1997 19% of Las Vegas visitors were from foreign countries.  After 9/11 that percentage dropped to 8% and in the latest available demographics from the LVCVA 2005 Visitor Study, foreign visitors were up to 12%.    As part of the new initiative between the United States government in partnership with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and the Travel Industry Association (TIA), international visitors will get a new greeting when coming to the U.S.  One of the main causes of the 17% decline in overseas travel to the U.S. what is perceived as an onerous and lengthy U.S. entry process.  A film developed by Disney will be shown in Federal Inspection Services Areas of the U.S. airports and in U.S. embassies and consulates overseas.  Still portraits will be incorporated in posters, banners and other imagery welcoming visitors to the U.S.  The images and video will not promote any commercial entities.   The first airports to feature the images will be Washington Dulles and the Intercontinental Airport in Houston, followed by the nations' international airports, which would include Las Vegas McCarran International.   The welcome Portraits of America video can be viewed at http://www.discoveramerica.com.