Las Vegas has heard the chatter. Room rates too high. Visitors staying home. The Strip losing its grip. But if the head of the city’s own tourism authority is right — and the numbers about to drop suggest he is — the negative narrative around Las Vegas may be due for a sharp reversal.
On April 25, 2026, Steve Hill, President and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), told an audience of local homebuilders that first-quarter visitation and room revenue will be “up meaningfully” over the same period in 2025. That’s a significant claim after a difficult year in which overall visitor volume fell nearly 8 percent, landing at 38.5 million for 2025. But Hill laid out a specific, data-backed case for optimism — one that travelers and casino visitors should pay attention to before booking summer plans.
What Steve Hill Said — And What It Means
Hill was direct about where things stand and where they’re heading. “In the first quarter, we’re seeing a pretty big difference between this year and last year at this time,” he said. He pointed to two concrete drivers: a major trade show that supercharged March numbers and a deliberate pricing recalibration by Las Vegas resorts that is beginning to bring more deal-seeking visitors back to the city.
The LVCVA is scheduled to release its official Q1 2026 statistics imminently, and Hill offered a preview that amounts to the best news Las Vegas has had in several quarters. After nine difficult months in 2025 — a stretch that saw occupancy rates and revenue per available room (RevPAR) fall below prior-year comparisons — the tide appears to be turning.
Hill was careful to frame the recovery in real terms, not marketing spin. “As long as the macroeconomic environment remains relatively stable and starts to improve, we will improve with it,” he said. That kind of measured confidence, backed by verifiable monthly data, is a different tone than the boosterism Las Vegas is sometimes criticized for.
CONEXPO: One Trade Show That Moves the Entire City
The single biggest factor behind the Q1 jump is CONEXPO-CON/AGG, North America’s largest construction trade show. Held at the Las Vegas Convention Center every three years, the 2026 edition in early March drew more than 140,000 attendees. Hill described its economic impact in blunt terms: CONEXPO alone is typically worth a 9 percent lift in RevPAR for March across the entire hotel line. “It’s a remarkable statistic,” he said. “RevPar growth in March will be higher than that — it will make the first quarter stand out, and it changes the narrative about Las Vegas.”
The show’s scale is hard to overstate. Most trade events of significant size come to Las Vegas annually, so their impact gets absorbed into baseline expectations. CONEXPO only arrives every three years, meaning its absence in the prior cycle created a gap — and its return in 2026 created a surge that shows up clearly in the data. Hill acknowledged as much: “Most of the others here that are that size come every year. You take them for granted, so you don’t know what it’s like when they’re not here.”
Beyond CONEXPO, the LVCVA’s Destination Sales group has been quietly loading the pipeline. In February and March alone, the team reported a 58 percent year-over-year jump in events booked and locked in 221 future events, with roughly 38 percent of those meetings new to Las Vegas. The projected haul: approximately 480,000 hotel room nights from those bookings alone. The Las Vegas Convention Center is on pace to host about 1.2 million trade show attendees in 2026, according to LVCVA board materials.
Casinos Are Adjusting Prices — and It Is Working
The other major piece of Hill’s argument concerns pricing. Las Vegas spent 2024 at the top of the national RevPAR rankings — 10 percent higher than any comparable city in the country, Hill noted. Then, as consumer sentiment shifted in 2025 and inflation-weary travelers started weighing their options more carefully, occupancy and room revenue declined. Critics said Vegas had overpriced itself. The data backed that criticism.
Resorts heard the message and responded. Hill pointed to a deliberate shift toward “all-in deals” and promotional offers designed to make the value proposition clearer to everyday travelers. “The resorts are capitalizing on what’s strong and responding to what has been weak. The all-in deals and sales are focused on driving the consumer and making it easier for them to make the choice to come,” he said.
That strategy is already showing results in the monthly data. February 2026 marked the first year-over-year increase in visitor volume in more than a year, up 2.1 percent. Occupancy rose 1.2 percent and RevPAR climbed 5.3 percent in February compared to the prior year. January was essentially flat versus 2025, Hill said, but with CONEXPO lifting March significantly, the full quarter is shaping up to be the strongest performance Las Vegas has posted since the 2025 downturn began.
What Travelers Can Expect This Summer
For anyone planning a Vegas trip in the coming months, the market dynamics are shifting in your favor. The pricing pressure that drove resorts toward promotional deals has not fully unwound, which means travelers willing to look for value can still find it — particularly outside the highest-demand weekends. Hill noted that the recovery from a financial standpoint is likely to happen faster than a pure visitor-count recovery, meaning hotels will be filling rooms and generating strong revenue even as the city works to rebuild headline visitation numbers.
The 2026 event calendar is working in the city’s favor as well. In addition to the trade show pipeline, major sporting events including WrestleMania 42 and the Las Vegas Grand Prix remain calendar anchors that draw premium-spending visitors. The Sphere continues to attract global acts and has become a genuine draw in its own right. And a heavy concert calendar heading into summer adds another layer of demand that keeps hotels busy outside of pure convention weeks.
Hill’s broader point about Las Vegas’ long-term position is worth keeping in mind as you plan. “We led the nation in revenue per available room growth from 2019 to 2024,” he said. “We were 10% higher than any other city in the country.” The city gave some of that premium back in 2025 as the market corrected. Now, with resorts repricing strategically and a robust trade show and event calendar filling convention halls, that position is being rebuilt on steadier ground — and the first quarter data about to be released is expected to confirm exactly that.
If you have been waiting for a sign that the right time to visit Las Vegas is coming back around, this is a good one. The Nevada sportsbooks are thriving, the casino floors are active, and the resorts are competing harder for your business than they have in years. The Strip is not going anywhere — and if the Q1 numbers deliver what Hill expects, the narrative is about to change in a hurry.
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