The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) is willing to spend millions of dollars if that’s what it takes to bring visitors from Canada and other countries back to the city.
The LVCVA’s board of directors approved a three-year marketing agreement worth just short of $3.5m on Tuesday, aimed at boosting tourism to Nevada’s gaming hub.
As part of an agreement which will run until June 2029, with the option for a two-year extension, Reach Global Marketing will provide international tourism marketing, as well as and promotion campaigns and services in Canada aimed at enticing residents north of the border back to Las Vegas. What exactly the Canadian-facing push will entail remains to be seen, but reports suggest that it could include mass-media advertising campaigns, supporting direct air travel to Las Vegas, investing in trade public relations and consumer PR and more.
SBC Americas reached out to the LVCVA and Reach seeking more information.
The LVCVA, whose remit is to encourage travel to Las Vegas, has had representation in Canada for the past 20 years. It was already under contract with Toronto-based Reach, but has now approved significant additional funding as part of the renewal.
Vegas’ biggest foreign tourism market dwindles
LVCVA Vice President of Marketing Fletch Brunelle told the board on Tuesday that Canada has been one of the top two countries since 2000 in terms of international visitors to Las Vegas. But the reason that LVCVA has green-lit the initiative is that last year saw a precipitous decline in Canadian visitors amid economic pressures, including President Donald Trump’s tariffs and public rhetoric about making Canada the 51st U.S. state.
LVCVA data throughout last year showed a double-digit percentage fall in Canadian visitors for most months of 2025. The agency estimated in December that while the total number of visitors to Vegas between January and November 2025 dropped 7.4% year over year; that drop was three times as large, at 24%, for Canadian visitors specifically.
Both Harry Reid International Airport and multiple Canadian airlines reported steep drops in traffic on flights from Canada to Vegas. Some, including the country’s biggest airline Air Canada, cut back on the number of flights they routed to Vegas.
Canada has been Vegas’ largest foreign tourism market in recent years, so the decline did not go unnoticed by casinos. The Chief Executive Officers of major casino operators MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment, Bill Hornbuckle and Tom Reeg, both referenced fewer Canadian visitors as a significant challenge on public earnings calls last year.
“When we take a look at Canada in particular, [it was] a very difficult year,” Brunelle said, as reported by 8NewsNow. “We’re hoping to reverse some of those trends. All the other international markets are making up for the differences in Canada at this moment, but we still want to see Canada come back in the way it was before and stronger.”
Still, Brunelle stressed that even with the lower traffic from Canada, Vegas saw almost 1.2 million Canadian tourists last year, which accounted for around 25% of all foreign visitation. Those Canadians contributed $1.6bn in economic impact for Vegas in 2025 alone.
Some take matters into their own hands
The LVCVA has been trying to repair bridges between Vegas and Canada for months. Last summer, its President and CEO Steve Hill led a delegation to Vancouver to discuss with Canadian tourism leaders about potential initiatives, including offering Canadians special airline and hotel packages.
Meanwhile, some casinos in Vegas have taken matters into their own hands, and the initial results suggest that it is working.
Circa Resort & Casino owner Derek Stevens launched an “At Par” offer in January that allows Canadians to use Canadian dollars at his three Vegas resorts as if they were U.S. dollars, offering a $1-for-$1 exchange rate as opposed to the actual rate, which currently would get you only around 73 U.S. cents for every Canadian dollar. Stevens told Canadian Gaming Business that fixing the drop in Canadian traffic was the core motivation for that initiative.
Stevens said last week that the promotion attracted more than 15,000 Canadian visitors in its first month to his three casinos, which also include the D Las Vegas and Golden Gate Hotel & Casino. A spokesperson for Circa said that the three properties would normally see about 4,000 to 5,000 visitors per month. Those 15,000 Canadian visitors resulted in around 2,700 hotel room bookings.
