HIGHWAY TRAFFIC REPORT
I-15 AT STATELINE/PRIMM
Northbound
traffic on I-15 headed into Las Vegas was up 5.8% in October, southbound up
6.5% for an average in both directions of 6.1% based on same day of the week
comparisons as reported by the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT). Northbound traffic on Fridays, increased
anywhere from 10.9% on Friday, the 26th, to 20.6% on Friday, the 12th. Friday, the 19th, was up 15.3%
and Friday, the 5th up 16.8%.
In an unusual pattern, Saturdays were off slightly on the day-to-day
comparison from last year. Northbound
on Saturday the 6th was up 2.6%, but the other three northbound
Saturdays showed slight declines of under 3%.
Increases in returning traffic, southbound on Sundays, ranged anywhere
from 20% on the 31st of October to a low of 9.7% increase on October
22nd. Year to date traffic
on I-15 is up .3%.
I-15 AT MESQUITE, NEVADA
While
the total vehicle count for Mesquite was up 5.38%, there was little change in
the
Traffic
pattern by day of the week. The
increase was across the board, with the exception of Fridays, when northbound
traffic headed out of Nevada was a little heavier than in past years. For the breakdown of weekday and weekend
traffic at Mesquite see chart on page 4.
LAUGHLIN, NEVADA
The
impact of the truck embargo across Hoover Dam is apparent in the traffic
statistics on State Route 163 (Davis Dam Road) where vehicle counts were up
nearly 30%. (See chart on page 4.) On U.S. 95 the total count was up
31.4%. The diversion of trucks is
further evidenced by the statistics on U.S. 93 at Railroad Pass where daily
traffic was down 4.3% and off weekdays 6.7%.
The diversion of truck traffic through Laughlin has had a positive
impact on the hotel/casino business, and bad weather in the Midwest has
heralded the arrival of the "snowbirds". The operators there are
encouraged by the return of these regular customers.
YERMO INSPECTION STATION
The
rounded estimates of southbound traffic on I-15 at Yermo showed an increase of
14%, with auto traffic up 7.9%, truck traffic up 48%, but RV's were down 45%
and bus traffic up 5%.
LAS VEGAS McCARRAN INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORT
National was the only scheduled carrier showing an
increase in arriving and departing passengers through Las Vegas McCarran
airport in October. The start up
airline was
up 3.7% for the month lifting its year to date (YTD)
increase to 21%. Month to month (M/M)
and YTD statistics for the top five scheduled carriers serving Las Vegas are as
Follows:
%M/M change %YTD change
Southwest
-1.6% 8.3%
America West
-29.7% 2.7%
United -25.7%
-10.8%
Delta -14.3% -13.3%
National -3.7% 21.0%
The declines in passenger counts on United and Delta
were largely due to cut backs in service.
Southwest has held to the same number of flights through Las Vegas as
before September 11 as has National.
All scheduled carriers were down 13.7% in October and are off 6%
YTD. Charters were down 46% in October
and are down 13.4% YTD.
GAMING REVENUE REPORT
The effects if the 9/11/01 attacks were evident in
the September report from the State Gaming Control Board. Downtown, which is more reliant on locals
and drive-in customers showed an increase in total win of 1.8% and Downtown's
percentage of statewide gaming win (share) climbed to 7.1%, up from 6.8% last
year and the first time that share had climbed above 7% since April 2000. The Strip, which gets more airline customers
was down 5.4% in gaming win and share off a full percentage point from 47.6%
this year from 48.8% last year. Laughlin
was also down, with win dropping 5.6% but share was off just slightly at 5.4%
versus 5.6%. Clark County win was down
2.4%, but the share climbed to 77.9% from 77.3%. This share increase is primarily due to a big drop in gaming win
in Washoe County (Reno), the second largest
gaming market in the state. Total
gaming win in the county was down 7.7%, while the total gaming win in Reno was
off 8.1%. Statewide, the win was down
3.2%.
WESTERN STATES TARGET CALIFORNIA
MARKET
With airline traffic seriously curtailed, other
western states, from Hawaii to New Mexico, are targeting Californians as a
prime market to keep their tourism engine going. Where the definition of a drive-in market used to be two hours
driving time, western states tourism officials say now the drive in market can
reach anywhere from the west coast to Texas, "Everyone needs to target
California because that's where the people and the dollars are." Said Los
Angeles hotel consultant, Bruce Baltin, of PKF Consulting, "California's critical."
In addition to the shift in dollars by the Las Vegas
Visitor's and Convention Bureau into California, in defense of it's own turf,
Sacramento has allocated a $5 million advertising campaign that will urge
residents to "rediscover California". Arizona is reserving $250,000 of a new $3 million advertising
campaign specifically for California.
Hawaii has given no specific amount, but Los Angeles and San Francisco
are the top two markets for Hawaii. New
Mexico is allocating $200,000 to "Put Yourself in a State of
Enchantment". Utah ski resorts are
offering reduced lift ticket and lodging prices in an effort to lure California
skiers. Since the September 11th
disaster the chances of western states increasing market share are remote, the
objective is to keep market share until the prime summer time tour season
and/or the economy rebounds.
thehighwaystations.com REACHES
LANDMARK
Over 200,000 people have logged onto The Highway
Stations' website since March of this year.
Acknowledgements have come from all around the world: Japan, Spain,
Germany, Mexico, as well as many domestic cities all across the USA. The site not only streams FM 98/99 and
Highway Country but also has up-to-date weather and traffic information.
BRIEFING NOW AVAILABLE BY E-MAIL OR
FAX
If you'd like to receive your copy of the Briefing
by fax or e-mail you may send a fax message to (702) 737-7833, giving your fax
number or you may phone (702) 737-9899 or send and e-mail message to sales@thehighwaystions.com, with
your return e-mail address. This will
put the traffic statistics and other information in your hands two or three
days ahead of regular mail.
AMERICANS INCREASE TRAVEL INTENTIONS
The latest Travel Confidence Survey taken by the
Travel Industry Association of American (TIA) since September 11th
shows 62% of Americans now plan on taking at least one leisure trip in the next
six months, up from 58% in the survey done last month. The telephone survey was conducted November
2-4, among a representative sample of 1,000 US adults and the third in a series
of consumer poles.
Americans are looking for travel ideas and
incentives, with a substantial number of those with travel plans, saying that
airline discounts (56%), special offers from hotels (53%), special offers to
travel within their home state (45%) and travel tax credits (44%) would make
them travel more than already planned.
The primary reason among those not planning to travel was economic
concerns (38%). The safety of travel
concerns only 14%. Americans continue
to feel that they are able to travel whenever and wherever they want (48%) and
that they are able to travel as they did before the terrorist attacks (72%).
The TIA was also predicting that while air travel is
projected to decline 25% in the fourth quarter and be down 9.4% for the year,
travel by car will be down just 2% for the fourth quarter and down only 1.5%
for the full year of 2001.
Listed below are the responses to some other travel
related questions asked in a survey conducted via phone for the conference
board by NFL World Group, a member of the Inter-public Group of Companies.
Do you or anyone in your household plan to postpone
or cancel travel by auto, by plane, by train?
By auto: Yes - 4.1% No - 95.9%
By plane: Yes - 21.3% No
- 78.7%
By train: Yes - 7.6% No - 92.4%
Does anyone in your household plan to postpone or
cancel travel plans by other means of travel?
Yes: 5.8% No: 94.2%
GASOLINE PRICES CONTINUE TO DROP
Lack of demand and a slump in the global economy has
driven the price of crude oil to as low as $21 a barrel from a high of $36 a
barrel a year ago. A spokesman for the
Nevada AAA predicts that gasoline
prices will continue to fall.
WALL STREET LOOKS AT ADVERTISING
BUDGETS
Now that most of the gaming companies in Las Vegas
are publicly owned, there is additional pressure on publicly traded companies
as Wall Street increasingly looks at marketing support, according to Jim
Gindrich, an analyst for Alliance Capital Corp., Sanford C. Bernstein Unit. Long criticized for creating the earnings
pressure by budget cuts, Wall Street is now asking companies pointed questions
about marketing spending as "A quality of earnings" issue. Deutsch Banc's, Alex. Brown, Analyst Andrew
Shore, cautions earning per share growth still is the key measure for
investors. Cutting marketing remains
one of the easiest ways to hit the numbers in a pinch, even if it's
destructive to long-term growth.
"The vicious cycle is that lower
advertising…lowers brand loyalty," Mr. Shore said. "It's like when the doctor tells you to
quit smoking after he found a spot on your lung and you keep doing it
anyway. This is the ultimate form of
cognitive dissonance."
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIANS FREQUENT
VISITORS TO LAS VEGAS
California has led the parade among repeat visitors
to Las Vegas. Fifty-nine percent of
Southern California visitors visited Las Vegas more than once in the past year
compared to 34% of visitors from the rest of the USA and only 8% of foreign
visitors based on the Las Vegas Visitor Profile, Fiscal year 2000, Southern
California and International Visitor Version from the Las Vegas
Visitor and Convention Bureau (LVCVA).
The average number of visits for the past year was
2.9 for Southern California and 2.0 for the rest of the country, with foreign
visitors 1.3. Just 6% of Southern
Californians came for a convention versus twice the percentage (12%) from the
rest of the United States. Seventy-six
percent of Southern Californians arrive by automobile and logically 73%
depended on their own car for local transportation. Eighty-five percent of Southern Californians said that they had
gambled while in Las Vegas. Eight-three
percent of all Californians visited three or more casinos. Eighteen percent visited nine or more. The average was 5.7. Eighty-five percent gambled on the
Strip.
Visitor demographics showed that Southern
Californians had a similar profile compared to visitors from the rest of the
United States except that Southern Californians were slightly younger, more
ethnically diverse, and had a slightly higher percentage of singles. There were fewer retired and they were more
educated. The survey was based on a
sample of 848 interviews.
