Visitors to Vegas

Visitors to Vegas

LAS VEGAS

Tourism officials say 3.4 million people visited Las Vegas in January, virtually the same number as last year.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority released its latest statistics recently that the number of visitors was up one-tenth of a percent in a month when the city was filled with Consumer Electronics Show attendees, New Year’s Eve visitors and fans of the Super Bowl.

The agency says hotel occupancy was down on the Las Vegas Strip and areawide in hotels, motels and during the week and weekends. The downtown Fremont Street area was the exception with 77.6 percent of its rooms occupied, up 4.2 percentage points.

Chinese visitors

The surge in visitors from China will continue into the next few years, with New York and Los Angeles expected to see a nearly 200 percent increase in travelers from the world’s most-populous country, according to a new study.

New York and Los Angeles already are the top destinations for Chinese visitors to the U.S. and will continue to hold those positions into 2023, according to a study by the Oxford Economics Co.

Chinese travelers have already surpassed Americans in total outbound international trips. But with the Chinese middle class continuing to grow, the study predicts that the travel trend will continue.

Geography quiz

Q. What is Wall, S.D., most famous for?

A. Wall Drug. The cowboy-themed complex of stores, famous for its billboards on Interstate Highway 90, draws roughly 2 million visitors a year to the small town, many of whom are on their way to Mount Rushmore, the Badlands and Yellowstone National Park.

Bazaar shopping

LAS VEGAS

An outdoor shopping experience modeled after a more modern Middle Eastern marketplace, complete with a little bit of price haggling, has opened in front of Bally’s Las Vegas.

The open-air Grand Bazaar Shops opened recently after a delay and about 15 months of construction, with numerous storefronts still “coming soon” based on signs outside the stalls and on a directory.

More than 100 spaces for retailers and restaurants sit on 2 acres of prime Strip-front property, steps away from other indoor malls, including nationally recognized retailers.

Combined dispatches