TORONTO — Without Googling, which city would you say has the most number of hotel rooms in the world?

Some obvious choices would include such heavy-hitters as New York City, Orlando, Paris and Hong Kong. According to Skift, Dubai was on track to claim the top spot by end of 2023 with over 154,000 rooms, while Bloomberg predicted the crown would go to London, England last year. 

While it’s difficult to say for certain which destination takes the prize (2023 was a record year for hotel development, with powerhouse brands like Hilton adding 24,000 rooms in Q4 alone and Marriott signing management and franchise agreements totalling around 164,000 rooms globally), the popular consensus for the past few years has been that one destination continually surpasses all others.

Las Vegas, Nevada.

Based on the latest figures from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), as of February 2024, Las Vegas boasts a staggering 154,662 hotel rooms. That’s nearly enough rooms to house the entire population of Guam, and more than enough to accommodate everyone on the island of Grenada. 

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise considering that in 2023, Las Vegas welcomed 40.8 million visitors, with over 1.4 million travelling from Canada (a 60% increase over 2022). Although it’s just shy of 2019 visitor levels by over 4%, increased airlift this year (overall capacity from Canada is up 111% compared to 2019, with 141 flights per week) will put the city on track to surpass pre-pandemic levels by year’s end. 

“We are constantly growing, changing and evolving to ensure we deliver the next big thing,” H. Fletch Brunelle, Vice President of Marketing at LVCVA tells Travelweek. “Our ability to continually add new offerings, especially at the pace, breadth and caliber that we do, is a major factor in helping bring people back to the destination year after year.”

Case in point, in 2023 Las Vegas saw the completion of several highly-anticipated projects that permanently changed the city’s landscape, including the much-talked about Sphere, which opened in September. Fontainebleau Las Vegas, opened in December with 550,000 square feet of meeting and convention space and 36 F&B concepts, also added 3,700 rooms to the city’s portfolio. And Bally’s is fresh off a US$100 million rebrand that includes a new name (Horseshoe Las Vegas), a transformed Jubilee Tower (now the Versailles Tower), and the renovation of 756 rooms. 

So if you guessed Las Vegas, chances are, you’re probably right. But can you also guess which Las Vegas hotel has the most number of rooms? 

That honour goes to MGM Grand Las Vegas, with a whopping 5,124 keys in one building. Whoa, Vegas!