On March 10, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported that potentially $131,600, 000 was lost in non-gaming revenue in the past 90 days resulting from 340 event cancellations and 236,700 lost room nights and untold amounts of casino betting. January results, though, showed Nevada collected $47 million, a 42.4 percent drop from a year ago, and the 13th straight month gaming revenues have declined.
Las Vegas visitors in January were fewer than 2.8 million people, a decrease of 11.8 percent from a year ago, yielding a 71.9 percent average occupancy citywide in January.
A survey conducted by the authority reported 60 percent of Las Vegas resort operators think 2009 convention and meeting attendance will fall further than it did last year when business travel was down 5 percent. That could spell trouble for the estimated 46,000 people in Las Vegas who have jobs relating to this business sector.
Las Vegas boosters and the business travel industry blamed President Obama and his defenders, in part, for exacerbating recession-related travel declines by suggesting companies that hold events in appealing destinations could be in line for public shaming.
Vegas Backstage Access (VBA) 
Obama singled out Las Vegas, no other cities or destinations, in rebuking businesses for having meetings. Now large companies don’t dare schedule meetings in Las Vegas right now because image is very important for large companies, and they do not want to be perceived as spending money foolishly, and the President of the United States said that it was bad for companies to do business in Las Vegas if they are receiving money from the government, and that means that he must think that having meetings in Las Vegas is excessive and bad for All companies and is a waste of money for companies, and corporations do not want their shareholders thinking that they are spending money excessively or foolishly. He is not man enough to correct his statement, which was wrong and harmful and needs a correction, and it is time for Americans and Las Vegans to quit giving Obama breaks. If Bush had said the same thing, every newspaper and writer and politician in Las Vegas would be demanding a retraction by the President. Obama has never had a real job and is not acting like he cares about employees in Las Vegas who he is hurting with his careless statement. I am not against Obama and I do not want him to fail, but it would be nice if it was reciprocal. I think that what he is doing for the American economy is better than Bushomics, but that does not do any good for Las Vegas if Obama says things that destroy the Las Vegas economy. He could make a statement today himself that would retract his mistaken perceptions about business in Las Vegas.