As the Christmas and New Year's holidays loom in less than a month, visitors to Las Vegas are coming at a snail's pace, prompting some officials to suggest the city needs to diversify beyond just tourism even with the prospect of coronavirus vaccinations pending.
Some 1.9 million tourists visited Las Vegas in October, an increase over the number of visitors in September but still barely half the 3.7 million who came to Sin City during October of 2019.
While the number of tourists who drive to Las Vegas improved slightly, the gambling and entertainment mecca is heavily reliant on flights from all over the world. And, at the moment, if overseas travel restrictions aren't limiting tourists then a reluctance to fly among U.S. visitors in the face of a surging second wave of COVID-19 is holding visitors back.
Now add in the state of Nevada's current guidelines - events and gatherings are limited to 25 percent capacity during a statewide pause for three weeks, and large events with more than 250 attendees are canceled - and it's been a difficult road to travel, almost literally.
That holds especially true for business travel, which is down almost 80 percent compared to last year, a particularly hurtful blow to a city that hosts hundreds of conventions and events each year.
In fact, the Associated Press reported that The National Finals Rodeo, which annually brings more than 170,000 fans to Las Vegas each December, relocated to Arlington, Texas, where coronavirus restrictions are less stringent.
Now the holidays, particularly New Year's Eve, are closing in. And, if you want to extend it out even further to events that are unique to the city, if the virus cancels the NCAA Basketball Tournament for a second straight year, Las Vegas could be at a crossroads.
This is a town where the bottom line is money, and money is not coming in.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board said last week that casino house winnings of almost $823 million statewide in October were down 19.5 percent compared with the same month a year ago, when casinos reported winning more than $1 billion.
But even just the eye test seems to be enough these days. Illinois couple Candy and Doran Jones took Thanksgiving vacation in Las Vegas last week and told the San Antonio Express-News they felt completely safe - mostly because the city wasn't as packed as it usually is.
"It's easy to socially distance in Las Vegas," Candy said. "There aren't many people here."
The pandemic has certainly made city officials and planners think twice about the city's future and its reliance on tourism, which greatly fuels the local economy. More than 20 years ago, Las Vegas tried to steer a different course and become a more family-friendly destination. Think Orlando, with more neon.
But it didn't work.
Then 12 years ago the city adopted the "What happens here, stays here" slogan - since revised to "What happens here, only happens here" - and, well, it was right back to Sin City.
As the Las Vegas Review-Journal astutely pointed out, while there are hundreds of thousands of residents in the city and its suburbs, Las Vegas lacks a diversified employer base - i.e., not so reliant on tourism - as well as having a weak mass transit system, low-performing schools and a lack of doctors to deal with something like the pandemic.
University of Nevada-Las Vegas public policy professor Robert Lang noted the tourism industry itself has diversified - resort operators have rolled out more places to spend time and money outside casino floors - but the economy overall has lagged behind.
"We've got all our money in one stock," Ryan Juden, city manager for the city of North Las Vegas, told the Review-Journal.
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