Las Vegas Should Cut the Price of a Good Time

Las Vegas needs to make a good time feel like a good deal again. Inside the casinos I visited, it could be 3 a.m. and you would not realize it: the lights never seemed to go off and there were people everywhere. In December 2024, MGM Resorts confirmed fee increases to KSNV,^[1] including a daily resort fee of $45 at Excalibur and Luxor. The charges covered amenities including Wi-Fi, gym access and boarding-pass printing. The crowd is the amenity I remember.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s^[2] visitor study puts average nightly hotel spending, excluding packages and complimentary rooms, at $179.10 in 2024 against $114.37 in 2019, a nominal 57% increase, though adding online surveys and new interview sites in 2022 complicates the comparison. Self-reported spending reflects who visits and what they book; it is not a hotel-price index. Over those years, the CPI-U for lodging away from home^[3] (U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted, annual averages) rose 14%. Meanwhile, visitor estimates for January through May,^[4] the five months published so far, total 16.46 million for 2025 against 17.60 million a year earlier, down 6.5%. The LVCVA’s monthly tables^[5] put every month below its year-earlier level.

Las Vegas visitor volume by month, January to May, 2024 and 2025

Operators have a serious defense. Strip gaming revenue fell just 1.1% from January through May against 2024,^[4] much less than visitation, and 87% of visitors in the 2024 study were very satisfied.^[2] Fewer customers can be a better business. An indiscriminate discount hands money to visitors who would have paid full price anyway. The LVCVA cites economic uncertainty for May^[4] and the Super Bowl, leap day and convention timing in February’s year-earlier comparison.^[6] I cannot read the effect of resort fees out of those bars.

Room prices complicate my argument, too. The average daily room rate from January through May was $190.88, down 4.6% from a year earlier.^[4] That satisfaction figure describes the people who came; it cannot explain the choices of people who stayed home. My objection to relying on bigger spenders is what the destination gives up. The crowd is part of the product. A hotel can protect its revenue per guest while making the destination less lively; its own accounts may miss that cost to neighboring businesses. Lowering the cost of a trip is a response operators control.

The Federal Trade Commission’s^[7] fee rule, effective May 12, already requires mandatory resort fees in the prominently advertised total while leaving hotels free to set prices. Hotels courting the middle of the market should cut resort fees and hold room rates steady, so the total actually falls. The business test is whether a lower all-in price brings enough additional and returning customers to pay for itself. No city owes me a cheap vacation. The lights can stay on in an empty casino, too.