The neon glow of Las Vegas has lost some of its shine. The number of visitors to the world-famous city fell by 7.5% last year, to 38.5 million.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority blames the downturn on travelers’ caution about the economy and a drop in foreign tourists. Canadian travelers, for instance, have retaliated against President Trump’s trade war by cancelling trips to the U.S.
Last year was “one of the more complex operating environments the destination has navigated outside of the pandemic period,” the authority said.
“The casinos are empty,” said Brian Torres Sauzo, a food runner at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino. “There’s a lot of fear for people, not just where I work, but friends who work in other casinos — just how little work there’s been and what that means long term for them.”
The visitor’s authority said convention business was steady in 2025. But overall, the downturn adds up to about three million visitors who didn’t spend money in Las Vegas last year, compared to 2024. Some casinos are looking for ways to entice Canadians to return to the city.
Quiet casino floors mean some workers report getting scheduled for fewer hours.
“Some days you’re sick, you’re tired, you’re stressed, but you still got to work through that,” said Sharon Beckworth, who works in the housekeeping department at the hotel-casino Harrah’s. “You got to do what you got to do to keep your job because you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Beckworth and Torres Sauzo are members of the Culinary Union Local 226, which represents 60,000 hotel and casino workers in Nevada.
Union leaders are concerned the Las Vegas economy could take another hit if the federal government’s aggressive immigration tactics come to Nevada.
“There’s got to be a course correction here,” said the union’s secretary treasurer, Ted Pappageorge, who has been watching the unrest in Minneapolis. “If there were 2,000 federal agents running around breaking down doors, shooting people, I think folks would decide not to come to Las Vegas. It would be crippling for our economy.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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