Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill told Nevada’s Economic Forum on Friday that a widening gap between wealthy and working class travelers is dragging down the city’s tourism economy, the body Nevada law tasks with forecasting how much revenue the state will have to spend over the next two years. \
“The upper end of our market is going well. The lower end is where we are seeing those declines,” Hill told the forum, describing lower income visitors who are “continuing to live paycheck to paycheck.”
Hill cited overall visitation down “about 7.5%” and “4 million fewer visitors annually,” domestic airfares to Harry Reid International Airport up more than 20% since March compared with 12% nationally, and rising credit card delinquency rates as evidence of the split.
Checked against the numbers LVCVA and the Federal Reserve have themselves already published, most of that holds up. Two figures do not.
Checking the Visitor Count
LVCVA’s own year end report puts 2025 visitation at 38.5 million visitors, down from a 41.7 million total in 2024. That is a drop of 3.2 million visitors, a 7.7% decline, a calculation performed for this article.
Hill’s “about 7.5%” lines up almost exactly with LVCVA’s own numbers. His “4 million fewer visitors” does not. It overstates the agency’s own reported decline by roughly 800,000 visitors, about 25% more than what LVCVA itself has published, also calculated for this article.
| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual visitors | 41.7 million | 38.5 million | down 3.2 million (7.7%) |
| Hotel occupancy | 83.6% (implied) | 80.3% | down 3.3 points |
| Average daily room rate | $193.18 (implied) | $183.52 | down 5.0% |
| RevPAR | $161.51 (implied) | $147.30 | down 8.8% |
The most recent monthly data tell a different, more stable story than the year over year comparison Hill used. LVCVA’s July 2026 report counted 3,171,600 visitors, up 2.7% from July 2025, with hotel occupancy up 1.1 percentage points to 77.2% and the average daily rate up 1.8% to $157.
Convention attendance was the soft spot, down 5.6% to 262,700, which LVCVA attributed to two trade shows shifting their calendars rather than to a demand drop. In other words, the steep annual decline Hill described is a comparison against 2024’s record year, not a description of where the numbers stand right now.
Slots Are Soft. Baccarat Is Booming.
Where Hill’s K-shaped framing does show up in hard numbers is on the casino floor. The Nevada Gaming Control Board’s July 2026 report put the Strip’s gaming win at $1.173 billion, up 3.6% from a year earlier, driven by high-limit baccarat and blackjack play.
Leisure slot machine play, the game most tied to ordinary tourist spending rather than high rollers, saw what the board’s report described as slight seasonal softening over the same month. High end table games climbing while everyday slot play cools is close to a textbook description of the divide Hill told regulators about, drawn from a data source independent of his own testimony.
The Delinquency Claim, Checked Against the Fed
Hill also pointed to rising delinquency rates as a sign lower income households are under strain. The most recent, and most directly comparable, national data available as of his testimony is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s quarterly household debt report, released August 11, 2026.
It found the share of credit card balances transitioning into serious delinquency ticked up only slightly, from 6.93% in the second quarter of 2025 to 6.97% in the second quarter of 2026, and the New York Fed’s own headline for the release calls delinquency transition rates “largely steady.”
Auto loan delinquency did rise, from 2.93% to 3.00%, which the bank described as a slight increase. The Fed’s report also cautions that new delinquencies for both products “remain at elevated levels” even without a fresh increase, so Hill’s concern about household strain is not unfounded.
But the specific framing that rates are “starting to rise” is a steeper characterization than the Fed’s own August release gives the most comparable number, a discrepancy this article did not find resolved in any of Hill’s public remarks.
Why Airfare Really Is Outrunning the Rest of the Country
The airfare figure holds up better, and has an identifiable cause. The Iran war began Feb. 28, 2026, and within weeks jet fuel costs were climbing broadly, a dynamic National Public Radio cited among the pressures that pushed Spirit Airlines to cease all operations on May 2, 2026, a shutdown NPR reported ended a 33 year run for what had been the ninth largest U.S. airline by seat count.
Hill told the forum Spirit had been Reid International’s second largest carrier and that only about half of its seats have been backfilled by other airlines, a market specific detail not addressed in national coverage of the shutdown. A discount option disappearing from one airport just as fuel costs were already pushing every carrier’s prices up nationally is a plausible combination for why Las Vegas fares would climb faster than the national average, even without any change in traveler demand.
Hill’s own agency reports 3.2 million fewer visitors in 2025 than 2024, not the 4 million he cited to state forecasters. The Federal Reserve’s most recent report calls delinquency rates “largely steady,” not rising. Both figures were checked against primary sources published before Friday’s testimony.
The Same Morning, a Sharper Signal Arrived
Hours before Hill’s testimony, the University of Michigan released its preliminary September consumer sentiment index, and it came in at 47.8, down from 51.0 in August and well below the 51.0 economists had forecast. That is the second lowest reading in the survey’s history, which stretches back to 1946, 80 years ago.
Hill told the forum national consumer sentiment stood at an 80 year low of 49.5%, a figure that appears to predate Friday morning’s release. If anything, the fresh number understates rather than overstates his point: sentiment has fallen further than the figure he used, not less.
Where His Numbers Hold Up, and Where They Don’t
- Overall visitation decline of “about 7.5%”: Matches LVCVA’s own 2024 to 2025 figures (7.7%).
- “4 million fewer visitors annually”: LVCVA’s own reports put the decline at 3.2 million, about 800,000 fewer than Hill’s figure.
- Airfares up more than 20% since March versus 12% nationally: Consistent with the timing of the Iran war fuel spike and Spirit Airlines’ May 2 shutdown.
- Delinquency rates “starting to rise”: The New York Fed’s most recent report describes rates as “largely steady,” though it also flags elevated new delinquencies.
- National consumer sentiment at an 80 year low of 49.5%: The freshest reading, released the same morning, is 47.8, even lower than Hill’s figure.
Steve Hill’s testimony to the Economic Forum, including all direct quotes, is drawn from Nevada Current’s Sept. 11, 2026 report. The 2025 annual visitor, occupancy, rate and RevPAR figures are drawn from LVCVA’s own Jan. 29, 2026 year end release; the 2024 total visitor figure is drawn from X1075 Las Vegas’s report on LVCVA’s 2024 Visitor Profile. July 2026 monthly visitor, occupancy and rate figures are drawn from News 3 Las Vegas’s report on LVCVA data. July 2026 gaming win figures are drawn from Nevada Globe’s report on Nevada Gaming Control Board data. Credit card and auto loan delinquency figures are drawn directly from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Aug. 11, 2026 household debt and credit report. The Iran war’s start date is drawn from Wikipedia’s article on the 2026 Iran war; the Spirit Airlines shutdown date, cause and national market position are drawn from NPR’s May 2, 2026 report; Spirit’s specific standing at Reid International and the seat backfill figure are drawn from Hill’s testimony as reported by Nevada Current. The September 2026 University of Michigan consumer sentiment figures are drawn from InvestingLive’s and IBTimes’s Sept. 11, 2026 reports on the index’s preliminary release. The 3.2 million visitor decline, the 7.7% decline rate, the 25% overstatement calculation, and the implied 2024 occupancy, average daily rate and RevPAR figures (each derived by reversing LVCVA’s own reported year over year percentage or point changes against its reported 2025 figures) are original to this article and do not appear in any of the underlying reports.
