Roughly 26 international destinations are reachable from Las Vegas. And the more, the better, say Las Vegas travel officials.

“[International] visitors tend to stay longer, and they tend to spend more in the destination, because their stay is a little bit longer,” says Cheryl Smith, director of air service development with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). “So from an economic development perspective, this is where air service development is critical to the economy overall.”

International travel continues to expand in the wake of the pandemic, but capacity still is not back to pre-pandemic levels, says Harry Reid International Airport’s Scott Kichline, managing director of commercial and business development.

“We’ve still got a lot of room to grow just to get back to the capacity that we had in 2019. We’re about 10% down at this point,” Kichline says, adding that travel from Asia is not close to pre-pandemic levels yet.

Smith and Kichline, together with Ailevon Pacific Aviation Consulting, compose the team that develops domestic and international air service in Las Vegas, a process that involves working with government officials, tourism stakeholders and airlines over the course of years.

“It’s a courtship in many ways. The relationship has to make sense for the airline,” says Joel Van Over, senior director of Ailevon. “We like to say it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

With the LVCVA, they’re well-equipped to compete in that marathon, Kichline says.

“This is a pretty unique relationship. When we see other destinations, it’s usually the airport [that’s] tasked with not only marketing the city and the destination, but also the details of the operations at the airport—the costs, gate availability and all that stuff,” he says. “We’re lucky enough to have this enormous marketing machine that is the LVCVA already out there, marketing the destination all over the world.”

THE PROCESS

Where do they begin? Data from Ailevon and from LVCVA’s research center comes in handy, Smith says.

“We look at the needs of the destination. We look at where demand is coming from. And then we start to look at the airline industry in particular, and say, ‘Potentially, what carriers do fly from that region of the world. Does it make sense? Is it a good potential alignment between Las Vegas, as well as the air carrier itself?’” she says.

The team also works closely with hotel partners to better understand how they would benefit from international travelers. “It just fuels that entire tourism industry here and kind of keeps everything moving,” she says.

Once the initial research and consultations have taken place, the team can start getting specific about which airline would provide the service. As a global consulting firm, Ailevon has relationships with airlines around the world.

“There’s a variety of airlines out there. Not all of them have the appropriate equipment to serve Las Vegas,” Van Over explains. “Las Vegas is a unique destination also in that it is high elevation, and it gets very hot. And that puts certain restrictions on aircraft departing Las Vegas in the heat of the summer.”

Then begins the song and dance of selling Las Vegas as a destination to the airline.

“Everybody’s heard of Las Vegas, but they may not know the details. We just spoke with one airline who is very interested in Las Vegas, but they thought that it was all slot machines and blackjack tables. So we have a little bit of a job to do,” Van Over says. “When you’re looking at international air service, [Las Vegas is] not necessarily in a league of its own anymore on the international stage. … When airlines have decisions to make on international service, the globe is their playground.”

Van Over and the LVCVA give presentations on what the destination has to offer and visitor data. “We will spend time with the various departments inside that airline to kind of talk that same message but in their language. So revenue management, or marketing or network planning or sales, all can be involved in these meetings. …

We may come back to the headquarters with a larger delegation. We oftentimes will bring them to Las Vegas to experience the destination themselves,” Van Over says.

Conferences like Routes World are another big component of the courting process. After the 2022 Routes World Conference in Las Vegas, nonstop service to Manchester, England was established.

Van Over says this is expected to boost visitation from one of the top origins of international travel to Las Vegas, helping get international capacity back to pre pandemic levels.

“Believe it or not, outside of North America, your top three originators of foreign visitation are London, Tokyo and Manchester. It’s a huge market for international visitation into Las Vegas. And without those nonstop flights, it was hardly recovered,” Van Over says.



NEW CONNECTIONS

Canada is Las Vegas’ No. 1 inbound international market, which explains why there has been a focus on augmenting existing service and adding new destinations. Since July 2022, Canada Jetlines began service from Harry Reid to Toronto, and Lynx Air began service to Calgary and Montreal. Flair Airlines is scheduled to begin offering its first flights to Ottawa, Toronto and Calgary in October.

In March, British Airways started offering service to London Gatwick, giving Londoners a more convenient way to visit Las Vegas.

“[With] the U.K. being our number one originator of foreign visitation outside of North America, growing that market is really important. And London Gatwick is a critical component of that, because it’s the airport that the locals use in London. To be able to grow both the season and the number of frequencies was a nice win,” Van Over says.

Other notable newly added destinations include Korean Air’s service to Seoul, Avianca Airlines’ service to San Salvador and Alaska Airlines’ service to Puerto Vallarta and San José del Cabo.

WHAT’S NEXT?

“You’re asking us to reveal our secret sauce,” Smith laughs when asked what destination the team is chipping away at right now. “Because it’s been pretty widely talked about in our board meetings and such by our own CEO, obviously, we would love to be able to have service from Tokyo.”

Representatives from the LVCVA will be attending the 2023 Routes World Conference in Istanbul in October after the board granted $386,000 for participation.

“We look at shows like Routes World, Routes Americas, Routes Europe, all of the other aviation conferences that are out there as opportunities to continue to build that relationship,” Smith says. “It’s going to take multiple conferences. Sometimes the dialogue spans multiple years.”

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