In Laughlin, entertainment is the main attraction

It took a bird’s eye view of the Colorado River to make Laughlin into the destination it is today.

In 1964, businessman Don Laughlin was flying in his private plane over Southern Nevada, near the tip of the state then known as South Pointe. From high above, he spotted a small, boarded-up, 8-room motel located along the river and surrounded by looming desert mountains in Arizona and Nevada – what later became the Riverside resort-casino.

“He saw a future that probably a lot of us would not have seen,” Diana Fuchs, marketing and entertainment director at Don Laughlin’s Riverside resort-casino, said. “He saw the beauty of the Colorado River along the Black Mountain range and the Newberry Mountains and thought they were stunning. He saw a little motel and it was all boarded up and he said, ‘You know what, this is where I want to live.’”

In the decades since the 1966 property opening, Laughlin has grown into a recreation and entertainment destination for the Inland Empire of Southern California, Arizona and Nevada.

Visitation grew in the 1990s, but a steady decline came after the loss of flights following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of one of its resorts and dropped annual occupancy rates below 50 percent.

Post-pandemic, Laughlin has regained some ground and stabilized in other ways while operators of eight resort-casinos look for ways to draw attention to their properties. Some are focused on resort renovations, while others try to find profitability in strategic changes to entertainment — like a focus on smaller shows and a new bingo program on the Colorado River — and group-based business.

From 8 rooms to 8,700

Laughlin grew into a booming resort town in the 1980s and 1990s, with the development of more casinos – and Don Laughlin’s support. In 1986, he funded and built the Laughlin Bridge that spans across the Colorado River and connects Nevada and Arizona. In 1991, he donated land and funding for the Laughlin/Bullhead City International Airport.

All that created a robust desert destination with visitation that peaked at nearly 4.6 million visitors in 2000, according to data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which also markets and tracks the destination. Tourism indicators trended down through the 2000s and 2010s.

That story largely continued through the COVID-19 pandemic. Annual visitation reached 1.2 million visitors in 2023, a 30.8 percent decrease since 2019, according LVCVA data.

Also during that time, the riverfront lost one of its resort-casinos. Golden Entertainment permanently closed the 1,168-room Colorado Belle in May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic’s first lockdowns. Company officials say they don’t have specifics planned for the property, which still sits empty with closure barriers along the parking lot perimeter and riverwalk. The destination now has about 8,700 hotel rooms.

Long viewed as a budget-friendly destination, average daily room rates peaked at $68.40 in 2022, LVCVA statistics show. Occupancy stayed around 48 percent between 2020 and 2022. In 2023, it rose to 50.4 percent, while keeping the average daily room rate above $60.

But the closure may have been a stabilizer for the destination. Fletch Brunelle, vice president of marketing for the LVCVA, said the operators and board meet monthly to discuss the destination’s collaborative efforts. All agree the destination doesn’t need more hotel rooms.

Laughlin has regained some ground by increasing airplane travel to the Laughlin/Bullhead City International Airport – up 40.2 percent from 2021 to 2023 – and nearly reaching pre-pandemic gross gaming revenues of about $511 million, compared to $512.2 million in 2019.

Changes in entertainment

Operators are renewing their efforts to keep entertainment as a main draw. Brunelle said it has to give the needed leg-up to market the destination against external competition.

“They want to show other things, as opposed to just gaming,” Brunelle said. “Gaming is one component, but also being a differentiator from what you see at other casinos in California or in Arizona.”

One piece of that is the Laughlin Event Center, where major headliners such as country star Jason Aldean, who performed at the outdoor venue on Sept. 21, play.

Operators are also leaning on their smaller venues. At Golden Entertainment, the company plans to utilize its roughly 1,200-seated Edge Pavilion more. Jeremy Jenson, general manager at Aquarius and Edgewater, said the venue is used about 30 times a year for comedy, bingo events, Latin acts, tribute bands and well-known talent.

That’s expected to increase next year. Previously accessed by a narrow hallway, the company is renovating the venue’s ingress into a larger artery with more “activations” like bars and a selfie station. It’s expected to open by November.

During the second-quarter earnings call on Aug. 8, Golden’s Chief Financial Officer Charles Protell told Wall Street investors the effort to reduce large-scale entertainment in favor of smaller acts resulted in higher profitability on each act.

Jenson said the two resorts’ business strategy has also focused on a new locals initiative. Golden introduced the Local’s Edge player’s card in July 2023, along with a riverfront bingo room in the former buffet space at Edgewater. The program gives anyone in a 50-mile radius food and beverage and entertainment discounts.

“We didn’t have a bingo room within our company down here, and we felt that that’s a big local driver. It’s typically a staple in these local casinos,” Jenson said. “We saw that that space was just going to be really perfect for it, overlooking the river. So it (the locals initiative) just snowballed from there.”

Other operators are looking at different kinds of entertainment. At Riverside Resort, Fuchs said sales have been focused on small group business.

“We’ve noticed that there’s a lot more business for family reunions and weddings,” she said. “I think specializing in weddings and anniversaries and family reunions is something that we’re going to be focusing on a lot more.”

Relying on the river

Central to the marketing push in Laughlin is the Colorado River. On a recent Tuesday in September, jet skiers sped up and down the river, sending waves under the docks where tourists wait for the water taxi – once shuttling visitors between Arizona and Nevada, it now takes them up and down the river to different resorts.

On the Arizona side, charter flights take off. Caesars Entertainment and Riverside Resort still engage charter flight programs. Fuchs said the four-times-a-week program, running from mid-September to mid-December, for Riverside draws about 10,000 annual property visitors from the north and Midwest, who seek out warm destinations when their weather turns.

“How do we help each other within this market, as the Indian reservations and these other jurisdictions have become more aggressive?” Jenson said. “Everybody’s gaming everywhere now, right? We continue to build that base and go back to value and the uniqueness of the river. It’s an asset no one else has. We can still play on that.”

It’s something the LVCVA also focuses on. The destination’s current tourism campaign is “All in Laughlin” – a push that highlights the market as budget-friendly with outdoor recreation, gaming, and live entertainment amenities.

It’s an important distinction compared to Native American gaming in the southwest. Brunelle said within a 500-mile drive radius, there are 32 properties with about 10,000 hotel rooms.

“That tribal gaming has become quite competitive with what Laughlin has to offer,” Brunelle said. “But they’ve got something the other casinos don’t – they’ve got the water.”

Sitting at a riverfront bench outside of Edgewater casino with two friends, English tourist Nicky Doidge said she’s noticed a few changes: higher prices – though she noted that was noticeable across her U.S. trip – and fewer non-casino activities to do that day.

She pointed to the Laughlin Outlet Center, which has struggled to keep retailers since the pandemic. The roughly 257,000-square-foot property is for sale, according to a Colliers listing without an asking price.

“We noticed the shopping mall and googled it – oh, loads of stuff!” said Doidge, who last visited in 2019 and stayed at the Colorado Belle. “But everyone tells us there’s only a few stores open there.”

One thing that’s the same? The Colorado River view.

“It’s a nice feeling here,” she said.

Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.