James' World 2

Aaron Berger, the Neon Museum’s executive director, said that Vegas’s growing pains aren’t new. He noted that Las Vegas began as a railroad town in 1905, becoming the link between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City during the Gold Rush, before it turned to gambling and hospitality, opening its first themed resort on the Strip in 1941. The city pivoted to entertainment, then fine dining in the 1990s, before becoming what it is now: a sports mecca, home to the N.H.L.’s Golden Knights beginning in 2017, followed by the W.N.B.A.’s Aces in 2018, the N.F.L.’s Raiders in 2020, and currently getting ready for the arrival of M.L.B.’s A’s in 2028.

Throughout those many versions, Las Vegas had largely endured as an affordable destination, with reasonable hotels and all-you-can-eat buffets. But in its latest iteration, the city is in the midst of a tourism downturn, with an 11 percent decline in visitor volume since last year, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The August release of those numbers sparked panic and pushback, not just in Las Vegas, but across the country, as other cities braced for similar hits. Decreased consumer confidence, a Canadian travel boycott and the fallout from tariffs have contributed to declines in international tourism in places like San Francisco and New York.

“The success of the economy here in Vegas is very dependent on the business cycle for the U.S. economy,” said Andrew Woods, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “We tend to be a signal, or sometimes ahead of the curve, of wherever the U.S. economy is headed, whether that’s growing or slowing.”

‘We Were a Bit Scared, but We Still Wanted to Go.’

While the visitor drop is significant, the visible difference is subtle. On a recent evening, the Omnia nightclub was crowded, but there were no lines at the door. Visitors gathered over white tablecloths at celebrity-chef-branded restaurants, but there were fewer tourists in the food courts. Gondoliers serenaded their passengers, but many boats floated empty. People milled around casinos, but while slot machines were popular, card tables were half occupied.

Las Vegas might be far from a ghost town, but it is not the city that local businesses usually count on to make money.

“There definitely are less people,” said Lane Olson, 61, the manager of the downtown cafe PublicUs, which relies heavily on tourists. While there was a brief brunch rush, the cafe was sparsely populated at lunch. “At this time it would be full in here, and there would be a line,” he said.

The cafe had raised prices once in its 10-year history, said Mr. Olson, in response to the recent skyrocketing price of eggs, and he was reluctant to raise them again, but conceded that “eventually we will have to make adjustments if it continues this way.”