With four college basketball conference championships hosted this month in Las Vegas, followed by the NCAA Tournament at sites nationwide, it’s no surprise that tens of thousands of fans will fly in and shell out big bucks to get in on the action. In fact, March Madness betting rivals Super Bowl betting at the sports books.
But March Madness in Las Vegas goes beyond basketball.
March is Las Vegas’ biggest month for visitation, drawing a record 3.7 million visitors in 2014, thanks to a combination of sporting events, conventions, holidays and good weather that experts call a perfect storm for driving business and tourism.
March is the city’s top grossing month for gaming, bringing in more than $860 million in revenue and hundreds of millions more in entertainment, dining, retail and other nongaming spending. It’s also the leading month for hotel occupancy and room rates.
That’s not to say the other 11 months are slow. They each draw more than 3 million visitors. But March marks the return — and peak — of Las Vegas’ biggest economic drivers after the long winter thaw.
March first gained momentum with tourists in the 1980s, when the city shed its reputation as primarily a gambling getaway and became a destination with broad appeal to anyone in need of some sunshine and fun.
At the same time, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the area’s tourism arm, continued to ramp up its marketing to the business and convention crowd.
March was an easy sell. Elsewhere in the United States, March is a slow month. There are no major holidays, and many cities still are buried under snow. Las Vegas’ idyllic weather and myriad activities call to many travelers.
“It’s the cabin fever effect,” UNLV Lee Business School professor Jack Schibrowsky said. “March is usually the time of year when winter is still hanging on a lot of places, and a number of people are looking to take a long weekend to escape. Guys come out for a convention and add a couple days for a buddy golf trip, or vice versa.”
March’s innate attractiveness created a snowball effect. As more people came here, more events and conventions followed, as organizers hoped to capitalize on and feed off the crowds. The past decade has seen the arrival of the NCAA conference tournaments, baseball spring training’s Big League Weekend and the Monster Jam World Finals. Today, there is a top-draw event and dozens of spinoff events scheduled every weekend of the month.
In an effort to attract Millennials, the city also began to market itself as a college spring break destination, offering resort packages and a slew of themed events and activities at bars. Nightlife expanded into daylife with Las Vegas’ top pools and dayclubs opening for the season in March. Even St. Patrick’s Day has become a local draw. Officials turn the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign green, and bars dole out green beer.
“For a lot of people, Vegas is on their bucket list, it’s on their radar,” said Caroline Coyle, vice president of brand strategy for the LVCVA. “But when we give them an excuse to travel here, that’s the icing on the cake. That’s what makes them pick up the phone, get in their car, make an airline reservation and come to Las Vegas. That is what makes these events so vital to the economy.”
How much bigger can March in Las Vegas get? As big as hotel rooms and prices allow, Schibrowsky said.
“Ten years from now, the customer coming to Vegas will be different than the customer of today,” he said. “But I’ll be surprised if what brings them here is different, in terms of that balance between vacation and business. It might look different, but March will always be reliable.”
Are other months next? Tourism experts say the key to further growth in Las Vegas doesn’t hinge on doing more in March but sharing the wealth with other months. Shifting or expanding events into February or April could mean big returns, UNLV Lee Business School professor Jack Schibrowsky said. Events could be created around events such as the Grammys and Academy Awards.
Follow Andrea Domanick on Twitter at @AndreaDomanick and fan her on Facebook at Facebook.com/AndreaDomanick.
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