increased room

Visitors to Las Vegas paid the highest room rates in history last month, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Thursday.

The average daily room rate in September was $187.18 a night — the highest average daily room rate since April’s $176.97 when the city hosted the National Football League Draft. Rates on the Strip were $199.49 a night with downtown Las Vegas rates at $117.95. Rates were 20.1 percent higher than they were in September 2021 and 36.5 percent higher than in prepandemic September 2019.

Kevin Bagger, vice president of the LVCVA Research Center, said visitors flocked to Las Vegas on weekends for the Life Is Beautiful festival, the iHeartRadio festival, the season-opening Las Vegas Raiders game against the Arizona Cardinals and the Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin Super Middleweight boxing match.

September also featured the traditional end-of-summer Labor Day weekend.

Hospitality industry expert Amanda Belarmino explained the double-edged nature of higher room rates.

“The current average room rate is a complex metric,” said Belarmino, assistant professor at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality. “On the one hand, we know that hospitality firms have been competing for employees. This is an expensive proposition which needs to be offset by increased earnings and increased room rates may be a part of this. Inflation has also impacted supplies to hotels, which may also account for the increased room rates.”

She said higher rates may change people’s perception of Las Vegas as a value proposition, but she doesn’t think they’re enough to sway people from staying away.

“Increased room rates may also be an indicator of a change in the perception of the city,” Belarmino said. “If consumers no longer view Las Vegas as a value destination and are viewing it as a trade-off with high priced destinations like Los Angeles