Viva Las Vegas? Tourists shun Sin City over ‘ridiculous prices’

Visitor numbers slumped 6.5 per cent compared with 2024. One tourist from the UK told of her shock at paying $33 for coffee and a bagel

By Keiran Southern

The Times

n a sweltering morning as tourists line up for pictures with the famous welcoming sign, one topic of conversation dominates: when did Las Vegas become so expensive?

Hannah Warren, a 50-year-old assistant costume designer from Essex, was still reeling from paying $33 for coffee and a bagel at the Fontainebleau hotel.

Gary Langlois, a 65-year-old retired salesman from Minneapolis, paid $40 for two coffees and a couple of croissants. That is on top of the resort fees, parking charges and various other costs that have become a fact of life for Las Vegas tourists.

Now, after a post-pandemic boom, there are signs the Strip has pushed visitors to a tipping point. Visitor numbers have dropped every month this year when compared with 2024, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Overall, Las Vegas in 2025 is 6.5 per cent behind 2024 in the number of tourists. Airport traffic is down and gaming revenue has declined, with experts blaming a combination of President Trump’s economic policies and the high cost of a Vegas holiday.

Locals call it “being nickel and dimed”.

Recent viral examples include a $26 bottle of water from the hotel minibar, a $60 (plus tax) fee to check in a few hours early at the Flamingo casino and MGM Resorts were said to have charged $25 for dinnerware with room service.

Anthony Curtis, the publisher of the bargain-hunting Las Vegas Advisor website and newsletter, said tourists were near breaking point.

He said: “On the Strip people get taken for a ride. Once they get here they’re like, ‘I’ve had enough of this crap, I’m tired of being treated like this. I’m tired of having to pay these ridiculous prices’.

“There are fees all over the place — fees to park, resort fees on top of room rates. And people are getting fed up with it. We hear that a lot from our customers.”

Curtis said that the post-Covid tourism boom was receding — bad news for a city so dependent on visitors’ dollars. “When the pandemic was over people came running into casinos like they’d never been in one before,” he said. “There was all of this pent-up demand but that’s starting to fizzle.”

The so-called “Trump slump” could be another factor keeping visitors away from southern Nevada, with the president’s tariffs creating economic uncertainty and discouraging families from splurging on a Vegas holiday.

His diplomacy has arguably been more damaging and Canadians infuriated by his annexation threats have boycotted the US in large numbers.

Traffic at the Harry Reid international airport has tumbled. International arrivals were down 8.7 per cent in May compared with the same month last year. The total number of arriving and departing passengers in May dropped 3.9 per cent. For 2025 the fall so far is 3.7 per cent, according to official figures.

The drop for Canadian passengers at the airport has been especially steep. Air Canada saw a 21.7 per cent fall in May from the same period in 2024.

Those figures do not surprise Jared Fisher. The 55-year-old is the founder of the Las Vegas-based Escape Adventures, which offers guided bike tours and hikes. This year Canadians, usually a significant chunk of his customer base, have stayed away.

“We’ve had Canadians cancel on us, which has been a bummer,” he said. Recent troubles remind Fisher of the pandemic slump. “This is like a mini Covid,” he said.

There was a time when Las Vegas was a destination for Americans from all walks of life. Not anymore: a 2024 study found that the median income of visitors to the Strip was $93,000.

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“They all want that customer,” Curtis said of affluent tourists. “To a degree they (casinos) turned their back on the middle market, which is a dumb thing to do in the long run, I would think.”

Whether the recent dip in visitors snowballs into a deeper crisis remains to be seen. Even visitors grumbling about prices on the Strip admit that Las Vegas

The resorts, while expensive, are some of the best in the world and can argue their entertainment offerings are unrivalled. Stars with Las Vegas residencies this year include Jennifer Lopez, Kelly Clarkson and Lenny Kravitz. Dolly Parton will perform six times at the Colosseum in December.

Curtis has not ruled out a wider crisis but believed the moneymen running the Strip would adjust accordingly; after all, they did not get rich by misreading their customers.

He expected an old Vegas maxim to once again hold true, and added: “When it’s bad for the casinos, it’s good for the customer.”