As many destinations around the world battle overtourism, statistics from southern Nevada from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), including figures for the gambling and good-times city itself, show a year-on-year decline in tourist arrivals, which has stakeholders and residents worried.
The 7% drop for the first half of 2025, comes after a post-COVID-19 rebound that had seen visitor numbers rise above 41.6 million by 2024. But overall visitor numbers, room occupancy, and convention attendance never fully recovered, and the current outlook seems rocky in the desert destination that once seemed to represent a bucket-list rite of passage.
Arrivals down as Californians vote with their feet
As this year’s summer season hit, the economic rift seemed to deepen; June trips to Las Vegas were 11.3% less than the previous year, meaning visitor numbers had plummeted to just 3.1 million. By comparison, visits to China’s Macau were up 13.3% for the same month.
Arrivals by road and air are both down too. On the formerly well-worn, tumbleweed-strewn route of Interstate 15 from California to Sin City, June traffic was 4.3% lower than last year, and air traffic – usually one-fifth Californian – has fallen 6.3%, indicators that commentators take to mean fewer so-called Cali-Vegans are being tempted by the lights of Sunset Strip and the casino’s perma-daylight.
Culinary Union leader Ted Pappageorge, reported by KSNV News3, places the blame on the “Trump Slump” – the chilling effect of President Donald Trump’s foreign policies and tightened borders. Nevada district Rep. Steven Horsford agreed, saying in a 31 July post on X: “under the Trump slump, the numbers are tanking.” Others point to wider economic uncertainties as part of the problem.
✈️ Las Vegas thrives on tourism — but under the Trump slump,the numbers are tanking.
— Rep. Steven Horsford (@RepHorsford) July 31, 2025
🇨🇦 & 🇲🇽 visitors make up 53% of all U.S. travelers, yet flight bookings are plummeting.
📉 March: U.S. tourism down 12%, Nevada down 8%.
🚫 Canada’s airlines are cutting Vegas flights.
Trump’s… pic.twitter.com/WyBpeV0knH
Is it the Trump Slump or is it worse?
Perhaps what neither of these views wants to acknowledge is a generational change in leisure habits that could be an existential threat to Las Vegas. Robby Starbuck, conservative activist and host of “The Robby Starbuck Show,” told Fox News Digital that under-40s tend to gamble online and “drink alcohol at lower rates than older generations did at their age. That’s going to have a material impact on the Vegas business model.”
He’s right. The city’s casinos notoriously lure in and retain customers with free shots for those at gambling tables and slot machines, but more than twice as many people in their 20s are abstaining from alcohol than 25 years ago, according to National Drug Strategy research, and Gallup says 38% of under-35-year-olds are now teetotallers. Free shots and in-person gambling, standing at a machine for hours, does not seduce non-drinkers who would rather be at home, on the sofa, on a phone.
Paul Dubinsky #TrumpSlump pic.twitter.com/NyuciamtOE
— Editorial & Political Cartoons (@EandPCartoons) July 31, 2025
If there is one thing that never changes in Las Vegas, it is that Las Vegas is always changing. Beloved venues regularly disappear to be replaced by new ones, as the Neon Museum, dedicated to “the history of demolished hotels in Las Vegas”, says on its website: “Las Vegas is a city known for its constant evolution, with old hotels and casinos often making way for new projects. Over the years, many iconic hotels have been demolished for various reasons.”
That constant churn means Vegas is very used to rolling with the punches, but any continued decline in Vegas’s appeal might indicate some radical Darwinism is now in order.
