Gas prices deter would-be Vegas gamblers

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LAS VEGAS -- Southern California gamblers who regularly drive to Las Vegas have cut back their visits by a third because of record gas prices, and those who still come say they've cut their gambling back by 29 percent, a new poll has found.The new poll, conducted last month by Jim Medick of Precision Opinion, was meant to identify why some gamblers have stopped coming and at what point they are priced out of Vegas because of gas prices.These findings offer a harsher picture of gas price's effect on tourism than statistics offered by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. They compile key figures such as the number of visitors who drive or fly to Las Vegas, hotel occupancy and room rates, but don't try to quantify how gas prices affect tourism.The number of incoming vehicles on Interstate 15 counted by the Nevada Transportation Department at the Southern California border -- a figure that inevitably includes locals and other drivers who aren't Las Vegas tourists -- is down 5 percent from January through April, compared with the same period in 2007.The visitors authority says tourist traffic from January through April was flat compared with the same period last year, although gaming revenue on the Strip was down 3 percent.Precision Opinion conducts proprietary marketing research for political campaigns as well as for corporate clients, including casinos and retailers.The survey follows a 2005 one gauging the response of Southern California gamblers to gas prices that had risen to more than $3 a gallon at the time. About 48 percent of the polled Southern California gamblers in 2005 said gas prices had affected their decision to drive to Las Vegas casinos, but the survey didn't ask motorists to explain what the impact was.Motorists in the 2005 and 2008 surveys were asked how expensive gas would have to be before they would stop driving to Las Vegas. On average, the motorists in 2005 said they would stop driving to Las Vegas when gas hit $3.51 a gallon. Last month, the average of responses was $5.73. Medick attributed the steep price estimate to responses from hard-core gamblers who said they would not be thwarted, even if gas were as high as $10 a gallon. Also, he noted that motorists have recently broken the psychological barrier of paying more than $4 a gallon for gas -- a price that nobody would have believed possible years ago.The research director of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Kevin Bagger, cautioned that Medick's poll painted an incomplete picture of how the economy is affecting gamblers' decisions to come to Las Vegas.The effect of high gas prices can be offset by other factors, including low room rates and other special offers, Bagger said.The purest measure of visitor traffic is hotel occupancy, he said. The visitors authority's monthly visitor traffic counts are extrapolated from occupancy rates rather than from car or plane traffic, which may not include tourist traffic, he said.Las Vegas hotel occupancy is down 2 percent from last year to 89 percent from January through April, though the region has about 3,500 more rooms to fill this year than last, according to the visitors authority.Factoring in those extra rooms, the number of room nights occupied across Las Vegas is flat with last year through April, with rooms occupied by tourists up 7 percent and rooms occupied by conventiongoers down 10 percent -- a significant slowdown, yet hardly a doom and gloom scenario, tourism officials say.MGM Mirage, the Strip's largest casino operator, says Southern Californians are still coming in large numbers, especially since the company and others began offering summer bargains.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)