Travel Geography: Las Vegas Tourism Attributes and Impacts

This report explores the tourism attributes and impacts of Las Vegas, focusing on the destination audit, socio-cultural, environmental, and economic factors. It highlights the key strengths of Las Vegas as a tourist destination, including its casinos, hotels, entertainment venues, and cultural attractions. The report also discusses the challenges faced by Las Vegas, such as environmental issues and economic instability.

TRAVEL GEOGRAPHY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Travel geography is basically the study and gaining an in-depth information of travel as
well as tourism and thus understand the various social along with cultural activities. The main
aim of this report is to understand the tourism attributes of Las Vegas as well as the various
factors which impacts this destination.
This report gives a brief overview of destination audit, impact of Socio-cultural,
environmental and economic factors and key strength of Las Vegas.
MAIN BODY
Destination audit
Destination audit is basically the process of analyzing the portfolio of of various
destination and thus assessing its current situation. Las Vegas has diversified activities and
aspects which helps them to attract a wide range of tourists every year. Talking of the culture in
Las Vegas, it is usually known for the entertainment as well as fun. It houses a wide range of art
galleries which helps the tourist to understand the importance of art in Las Vegas. Besides this,
every year it hosts some events to make the people aware of cultural values and beliefs of Las
Vegas like fun festival, etc. Smith center every month host numerous shows such as Broadway,
ballets, orchestras, choirs, dance performances etc. The main aim of hosting these shows is to
acquaint tourists with the different genera of music.
Coming on the political situation in Las Vegas, its political climate is liberal and thus is
democratic. In this sense, it has a great political stability and less corruption. The government is
somewhat stable in the city and does not changes frequently. This results in the less corruption
rate in Las Vegas and thus is the main rationale why the tourist like to visit it ever year. Due to
high political stability and less corruption, people generally does not have fear in their minds in
traveling and therefore, a large number of tourists each and every year travel to this city in great
number.
The unemployment rate in Las Vegas is around 5.0% on an average and this is much high
as compared to the figures in US. Neglecting the unemployment rate, Las Vegas are highly
economically stable in terms of taxes, interest rates etc. The major drivers of economy of Las
Vegas are gaming as well as conventions that in turn help to feed restaurant industries. The
primary attractions which helps them to generate a huge amount of fund from tourism and
contribute to economic stability are casinos as well as hotels. Las Vegas is widely known for

gambling, casinos, bars, clubs that are located across downtown. Besides this, Las Vegas also is
a house of spectacular hotel which contribute on the large part towards its economy. The
renowned Venetian hotel is the finest resort along with numerous tourists attractions.
Along with the wide entertainment, Las Vegas is widely known for its fabulous and
fantastic culinary scene and thus consist of labyrinth of dining restaurants providing multi-
cuisine food thus its food culture is highly imperative. It food culture mainly consist of mixture
of french and Spain dishes along with providing around 2000 top-class wines to people. The
most popular dish which tourist love to eat inn Las Vegas is The riserva steak. This provides
people with beefy flavors and is highly known dish in Las Vegas.
Impact of Socio-cultural, environmental and economic factors
Environmental impact
The environmental factors has been one of the major threat for Las Vegas and thus have
impacted in a great way. The air quality has been perhaps the widely known acute problem when
talking of Las Vegas and its valley. The harmful gases steeming from motor vehicles as well as
incessant construction and contaminants from commercial as well as industrial enterprises has
affected the valley in Las Vegas in negative way. As per the report of Department of the air
quality, the motor vehicles in Las Vegas releases around 85% carbon monoxide which when
enters the environment gives rise to various harmful effects like acid rain, air pollution etc. This
has affected Las Vegas valley and has lead to the increase in smog hotline. The particulate matter
has been reported to more than PM10 in valley of Las Vegas and this has impacted even the
children in negative way.
Socio-cultural factors
Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing and developing metropolis country which has
transformed from past few years to a great extent. Vegas is generally known for the vast casinos,
spectacular hotels, entertainment venues, elaborate hotels etc which attracts the wide range of
tourist every year. Las Vegas has a fantastic architecture but a wide range of Socio-cultural
factors have impacted people in Vegas in extreme way. The changing attitudes as well as beliefs
of people have affected Las Vegas in a great way. For example- A wide range of tourists like
those following Islamic religion considers drinking, smoking, playing cards as offensive and is
generally against their religion. Thus, these people have varying beliefs and due to this they tend

to visit Las Vegas less frequently. Besides this, most of the old age people are more likely to
explore things rather than drinking thus this also affects the tourism in Las Vegas.
Economic aspects
From past few years, the unemployment rate in Las Vegas has increased from around
34.8% to more than 56.9% and thus this has impacted Vegas to a great way. Due to the high
unemployment rate in country, the disposable income of people has somewhat decreased and this
has reduced their spending n various tourism services. Las Vegas is still facing the challenge of
unstable economy due to which the taxes which the government collect from people and
organizations has reduced. Due to this reduced income from taxes, government are not able to
spend the money on various destination suites in Vegas and this has eventually reduced number
of tourists in Vegas. It has been reported that due to bad condition of various sites like Hoover
dam, tourists generally avoid visiting this place and thus the income which is being generated
from tourists has declined to a great rate.
Key strength of Las Vegas
Las Vegas is considered as one of the most fastest growing and beautiful metropolis
country and is widely known for major resorts. It is a highly renowned resort city which is
mainly known for various gambling activities. Along with the gambling, Las Vegas has marked
its presence in terms of spectacular dining, shopping, entertainment, nightlife etc. Las Vegas
mainly serves as leading and prime financial, cultural as well as commercial center for the
Nevada. The major strength of this destination which attracts the large number of tourist every
year are their casinos as well as hotels. It is considered as the place of entertainment industry and
thus houses a large number of bars and club which are located across downtown and thus are the
major attractions. Besides this, the another mesmerizing and captivate location which compels
the tourists to visit Las Vegas is Fremont street. In downtown, this street is the pedestrian area
that have unique sites and is surrounded by canopy of LED lights which illuminate sky in various
dazzling co lours as well as designs. This street every day comes up with special entertainment
that makes the experience of tourist truly unforgettable. Besides the destination spots, another
main strength of Las Vegas is its culture. This city if generally the home of various museums like
Neon museums, Mob museum, Las Vegas museum etc. This city usually hosts wide range of
galleries as well as events including film festival which enable the tourists to have a look of
history of Las Vegas. The “First Friday” is one of the enthralling celebration which involves arts,

music, food etc and help the tourist to understand the cultural values and different aspects of
Vegas. Every week, a series of performances are being hosted in Las Vegas which includes
opera, jazz, dance performances, ballet etc that helps the tourist to understand the most exciting
music culture of city.
The climate in Las Vegas are generally stable which forms its another main strength. Las
Vegas basically lies in Mojave desert and due to this, the climate of city is typically hot in
summers with warm season and is characterized by cool nights along with short winters. Talking
of the sunshine, it is generally abundant throughout year and thus have 310 sunny days. The
rainfall is basically scarce having an average of around 110mm that is spread across the North
America. Summer months from June to the September are generally hit with low humidity. Thus,
the climate and weather of Las Vegas is their core strength and this helps to attract more and
more tourists.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that Las Vegas is considered as one of the most influential
destination which is widely known for its gambling as well as casinos. The economic,
environmental as well as Socio-cultural factors poses a great impact on Las Vegas and thus
somewhat affects the number of tourists. The main strength of this destination are their
spectacular casinos as well as hotels. Besides this, its stable temperature also forms its core
strength.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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Boniface, B., Cooper, R. and Cooper, C., 2016. Worldwide destinations: The geography of travel
and tourism. Routledge.
Feyrer, J., 2019. Trade and income—exploiting time series in geography. American Economic
Journal: Applied Economics.11(4).pp.1-35.
Smith, D.P., 2018. Population geography I: Human trafficking. Progress in Human
Geography.42(2). pp.297-308.