The 2025 Las Vegas economy is not on the same roll that it was in recent years, coming out of the worst of the pandemic. This has implications for the entire U.S. economy, especially places that also depend on visitors who are willing and able to spend discretionary income. When things are uncertain, among the first places people pull back on spending is travel and hotel stays. That means if there are signs of this happening, Vegas will like feel it first — and intensely.
Ray Lujan is a native Las Vegan who’s been working in food service for decades. He’s a member of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, and he’s also in real estate. This is all to say he’s got a front-row view of the city’s economic pulse. He spoke with “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio during a recent reporting trip to Las Vegas. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Ray Lujan: I work in a fine dining restaurant. So a couple of days a week, it seems a lot slower, a lot slower. I know my brother is a bellman at one of the top hotels in town, and he’s seen the traffic just been cut down tremendously as well. So we’ve been talking about that…