Some, Uh, GOOD Economic News!

Most months I strain to find anything remotely sunny to glean from the data provided by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority on room occupancy, gaming revenue and tourist numbers. You know, like when the only positive indicator is that the Laughlin airport received a a few more visitors.

Well, there is some glimmer of happy news for the Las Vegas Strip in the April data. You just have to do some calculations to really find it.

For instance, the report says the city's total occupancy was 88 percent on 140,559 rooms means that 3.71 million room nights were occupied. While 88 percent is lower than the April 2008 mark of 90 percent, there are also 2.9 percent more rooms now thanks mainly to Encore. So in April 2008, 90 percent of 136,586 rooms were occupied, or 3.68 million room nights. That means April 2009 enjoyed a modest uptick.

Since visitor volume was down 2.9 percent overall, this means that people are staying longer and/or local Las Vegans are taking staycations on the Strip. And they'd be smart to do so; average room rates in April 2009 were $94.08, down THIRTY PERCENT from last year, when in April the average room rate was $135.67. OUCH!

Also up is auto traffic to Vegas from California. It rose an impressive 11.3 percent higher. That seems to imply that (a) Californicators are taking trips closer to home and (b) Californicators are taking advantage of rock-bottom Vegas prices.

So that's that. OH! And hooray for Laughlin, too. About 1,100 more people deplaned there in April 2009 versus April 2008. Up 5.5 percent! Yahoo!