-Let's narrow in now on Las Vegas convention and tradeshow tourism.

Two large shows wrapped up this month with World of Concrete expecting 60,000 attendees this year.

That's 20,000 more than last year.

And at CES, organizers reported more than 115,000 attendees, exceeding expectations.

So what does this indicate about the industry's recovery from COVID?

For that we welcome Howard Stutz, gaming reporter for The Nevada Independent .

Howard, welcome.

(Howard Stutz) Thanks for having me on.

-First off, we have a lot of people that are new to Nevada and new to Las Vegas.

Can you summarize just how important this trade show and convention industry is here?

-Well, that's a-- It's a great question because it's grown over the years, the entire convention business.

Nevada, years ago 2019, that we had 6.6 million convention attendees as part of, as part of our visitation, the visitor totals that come out.

Last-- Right now, 2020, it was zero because of the, because of all the conventions got cancelled.

2021 we're starting to build back up.

Right now through November, because we're looking at the numbers for 2022, we'll get December numbers at the end of this, at the end of this month.

It's about 4.2 million convention attendees.

So we're getting back.

And a lot of the gaming companies were very-- look forward thinking in their, in their comments during the earnings calls last year saying, We've seen a lot of forward bookings coming up for 2023.

It's going to be a good year.

And CES and World of Concrete have proved that already.

CES I think last year was about 60,000, you know.

That didn't happen in 2020.

Or it did, it was right at the beginning of the pandemic and it started to, you know, there was a lot of-- some people canceled.

Is was a little bit, a little slow.

Obviously didn't happen in 2020.

2021 was only 60,000 people.

So this year, you know, it's-- You know, 2022, 60,000 people.

This year really-- -115,000 attendees.

-Yeah, so it's a really good sign.

And World of Concrete was been packed down there, and all brought back all the bricklaying competition.

So there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of positive sites looking forward right now.

-And you talked about the earnings calls in which CEOs from the Strip will be on those calls.

And it's not just fluff.

It's not that they're putting that out there as an optimistic point of view, because you have to book conventions quite far out, correct?

-You book them a year, some years in advance.

You know, we have some that are booked out that it's like a three year-- they don't happen for three years, and they'e already booked for, you know, three years from now.

One of the signs that we saw last year, the Global Gaming Expo was the largest convention, you know, for the gaming industry.

It happens every, every October in Las Vegas at the Venetian complex.

2020, it obviously went virtual.

Last-- in 2021, they had a scaled down version, maybe about-- I think they had attendance about 13,000.

We actually did a Nevada Week taping there, and it was an empty floor, I mean, practically.

I told, I told the host it was like, you know, in normal times, this would be packed with three, four booths.

So this, this past one in October almost topped, almost met the record in terms of, in terms of attendance.

They had about 25,000 attendees.

Not the same scale of CES and World of Concrete, but that was a large-- and we had a large number, and we had international travelers back, too, for it.

So it was a really good sign moving forward into this year.

-Okay.

Steve Hill, president of the LVCVA, says he thinks there's a pretty good possibility this year there could be those 6.6 million attendees here for conventions and trade shows.

That happened in 2019.

You think this will be the year we're back to normal, or still getting there?

-You know, I always hate doing that kind of prediction, because you never know.

You know, something weird could happen.

Like international travel is the biggest, along with conventions, that was one of the two big keys we needed for Las Vegas on the comeback, you know, following the pandemic.

International travel is still slowly coming back.

We don't have any direct flights from Asia, I don't think, set.

We have South Korean Air flying in here, Korean Air flying in.

We don't have those yet.

We have a lot from Europe and other markets.

There has been some talk that I think the U.S. was going to halt.

You know, asked for, like, quarantines or tests from China because they had an uptick in COVID.

So that's going to be the big key before we really are-- can say, yeah, we're back to normal.

And things are moving forward.

I think that'll be one of the big keys to look forward to.

-International travel is such a big part of the population that comes for these conventions and the trade shows.

But it's interesting you mentioned that talk about the U.S. possibly imposing quarantines, because China is now getting rid of their quarantine requirements.

-Right.

And that came up earlier, I think like toward the end of last year.

And so hopefully it won't happen or it won't.

It may, you know-- it'll just go away real quick.

But you know, international travel, let's remember, the airport is going to set a record this year for terms of passengers.

The record was 51.5 million back in 2019.

We're already at just like-- we're just, we're close.

We're over 48.3 million passengers through November.

If December holds, certainly we don't know.

We know about the Southwest meltdown and everything.

But if December holds to like the average, we'll break that record.

And that's with international air passenger volume still below the record of 3.8 million.

We're about 2.3 million through through November.

-Wow.

Okay, so you talk about convention and trade show tourism.

It's different than visitor volume, though.

Those are two different numbers.

And how do the two compare as we talk about recovery from COVID?

-Well, you add in convention, convention business is added into that visitor volume, but the total visitor volume where we're at right now is we're still behind.

I mean, we're-- Through November was 35.5 million.

The record is-- We're down 9% compared to 2019.

That's going to be-- That's where we have to come back was 40.

The record visitor volume ever was 42.9 million.

So we're, we're still behind it.

That's really where it's going to come back.

And a lot of what's going on this year may, will probably help it.

-Talk about some of what is going on this year that will help it.

-Well, of course we have-- Allegiant Stadium has been, has brought in a lot of folks, you know, not just for the Raiders games.

I wish it could be for maybe one or two UNLV games, but not for UNLV.

But for all the college, the other events they've had there.

We've got the Shrine, the East-West Shrine game coming up.

There's-- They have the Notre Dame BYU game last year.

So they play these nonconference college games there.

Las Vegas Bowl.

-Concerts as well.

-Concerts have been, you know, incredibly-- It's been done really well, and we've got more on the books for this year.

Allegiant has helped boost that, boost that tourism number, helped bring more people in.

But it's just going to be-- The other events are going on.

We've got, of course, Formula One we've talked about.

I'm sure we're going to talk about that, you know, ad nauseam this year.

But that's going to be a very highly attended event.

It's already-- The room rates, we talked about it once before, are going up because of Formula One.

In 2024, we have the Super Bowl, you know, and we'll always get-- Always remember Vegas, as you well know, we do very well when the Super Bowl is somewhere, because people want to come here if they can't go to the Super Bowl itself.

You have March Madness.

So you have those sporting events that, those big weekends that draw visitors here, even if they're not even in this market.

And remember, the West Regional is going to be at T-Mobile Arena in, at the end of March, beginning of April.

I'm not sure of the date.

So that's the first time we'll have that event here.

So that will add people.

-It all sounds really good, but then we hear talk about a potential recession.

What have you heard?

Have you heard anything on the earnings calls about concerns?

-They've been very positive on these earnings calls.

You know, years ago there was a recession before the big Great Recession in the late 2000s.

The recession, Vegas seemed recession proof.

We learned we're not recession proof when, when it hit in the late 2000s.

Nobody knows what the extent of a recession would be, what it might look like.

You know, people have been, even after COVID, when people were cutting back, they were still traveling.

And we saw travel boost up in the-- all through 2022.

That's why our numbers are still, you know, pretty good.

You still get, you know, they're getting good room rates on the Strip.

You know, they set records for the number, for the amount of prices they were getting on the Strip in terms of rooms in October.

So we don't know if the convention is gonna slow things or not.

I mean, it's just-- I mean, a recession will slow things or not.

We'll see what happens.

-Okay, so you've talked about how events have risen room rates in your reporting and brought in visitor volume as well.

Has the landscape of Las Vegas changed in terms of gaming revenue versus nongaming revenue?

-Remember, Nevada, for years-- old guys like me remember this-- Nevada and Atlantic City were the only places in the country you could find a casino.

Today, there's like 37 or so states with commercial casinos.

Another 20 states have tribal casinos.

Sports betting has expanded throughout the U.S.

I mean, you can go anywhere you want almost in the country and go to a casino or bet on sports or something.

So that's what's changed.

Over that time in Las Vegas on the Strip, gaming revenue wasn't the driver for the, for the big revenue driver for the Strip.

It was the nongaming stuff: the hotels, the restaurants, the shopping, the entertainment.

Allegiant Stadium has added to that because of the entertainment.

So in the-- It used to be, it was around the time, it was 65-35%.

Now, the numbers are pretty skewed right now.

In a fiscal year, it'll-- Just coming out today, as we're on the show here, for fiscal '22, which ended July of last year, you're looking at 30% of the gaming, 30% of the revenues on the Strip were from gaming and another 69-70, almost 70% were from nongaming.

-Wow!

-So we see that come back even higher.

In the time when Vegas had-- We had what?

The Strip had like the $7.1 billion revenue year in all of 2021.

In 2022, we still have November numbers.

The Strip gaming revenue is 7.5 billion.

It's already a record, and we're still, we're still waiting for December to be counted.

So there is, they're big numbers.

I get, I mean, I'm not a math guy.

I get confused.

But you can see right there that there is people have disposable income, they're coming to Vegas, and they're spending it.

-In gaming traditionally, and in nongaming-- -Nongaming is big.

And we've got a big nongaming event happening, project coming up, that's supposed to launch later this year.

-What are we talking about?

-The Sphere.

-Ah, the MSG Sphere.

Yep, for more entertainment.

Howard Stutz, The Nevada Independent , thank you so much for your time.

-Anytime.