Las Vegas consultant Jeremy Aguero. Photo credit: Hugh Byrne/LVSportsBiz.com
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — An outgrowth of declining visitation to tourism-based Las Vegas is declining hotel room tax money to pay off Southern Nevada’s $1 billion-plus debt on the public’s $750 million contribution to help build the Las Vegas Raiders NFL stadium.
This comment from well-connected Las Vegas consultant Jeremy Aguero, who tracks economic trends at his Applied Analysis business that he started in 1997: “A correction is coming.”
You can make the case the correction in lowered hotel room tax revenues has already started in light of the monthly revenue of $4.75 million in Feb. 2025 compared to a robust $6.58 million in Feb. 2024. That’s a major drop of 27.7 percent — or $1,824,287 less hotel room tax revenue in February from the same month in the previous year. The Las Vegas Stadium Board meets in two weeks Aug. 21 so we will see updated hotel room tax revenue numbers for March, April and May. Hotel room tax revenues also fell in October and November, according to Las Vegas Stadium Board charts.
Las Vegas absorbed a visitor decline of 11.3 percent in June from June 2024 and Aguero believes the drop in the number of tourists will translate into less hotel room tax money being collected this year compared to the monthly numbers of 2024.
Thus, Aguero’s “a correction is coming” comment to LVSportsBiz.com Thursday morning after the Applied Analysis principal gave his patented enthusiastic presentation at the annual Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance Perspective event.
Aguero, currently doing consulting work for the A’s, Las Vegas Grand Prix and the LVCVA, is the go-to presenter at Las Vegas’ two big economic trend events — the Chamber’s Preview Las Vegas in January and the global alliance’s Perspective in August.
Aguero played central roles in the Raiders and A’s stadium subsidy bills passed by the Nevada Legislature in 2016 and 2023, respectively.
After he served as the Las Vegas Stadium Board’s administrative support staff, Aguero went to work at the Raiders as an executive before returning to the stadium board and then leaving to work as a consultant for the Athletics.
Aguero’s staff at Applied Analysis assembled quite the presentation of more than 150 slides at Perspective, including videos showing quips, comments and quotes from the characters of pop movies like Rocky and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Aguero told LVSportsBiz.com that his presentations are spiced with humor or compelling images to not “lose the audience.” He said his goal is to convey five or six key points in a presentation that’s fashioned by a dozen staffers.
“We’re analyzing the economy all the time,” Aguero said. He noted his economic impact reports for clients like the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix include financial losses and displacement factors and invited economists nationwide to see how he comes up with his economic impact reports.
Aguero also touched on the viral news of declining tourism in Las Vegas.
While acknowledging the Las Vegas visitor decline is real, it’s “not the end of Las Vegas. It’s not a nuclear winter.”
He ticked off factors influencing the declining number of Vegas tourists: inflation, travellers aging out, less international visitors and pricing out customers.
Aguero is perceived as a Las Vegas booster, especially with his support of the Raiders and A’s stadium public subsidy deals. But his presentations and comments also include very sobering local trends like a “stressed health care sector” and so many Las Vegas locals unable to buy a house.
“Housing attainability keeps me up at night,” he said.
It was a sold out Perspective event at a ballroom at the Aria on the Strip. The Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance (LVGEA), Las Vegas economic development agency, is undergoing changes with a new CEO, Danielle Casey, starting her new job this month.