Las Vegas visitor numbers were up slightly in May, but the gaming Mecca continues to struggle with declines in key benchmarks such as hotel occupancy, room rates and airline passenger counts.

Visitation eked out a slight gain in May, up 0.4 percent to 3.4 million against an easy comparison to the 1.2 percent increase last May, according to a report to investors by Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Bill Lerner. On a year to date basis, Lerner noted, Las Vegas visitation is flat. During May total occupancy declined to 89.7 percent with weekend occupancy of 92.7 percent and weekday occupancy of 88.1 percent. The average daily rate dropped 5.5 percent to $135, and RevPAR was down an estimated 7.9 percent, Deutsche Bank said. In addition, May marked the fifth consecutive month, and six out of the last seven months, of ADR and RevPAR declines.

In addition, passenger counts at McCarran International Airport were down 4.7 percent in May and down 2.4 percent year to date, while vehicle traffic on Interstate 15 from California was down 5.6 percent in May and down 5 percent year to date.

“We would point out that while overall visitation is flat, occupancy and passenger traffic (air and car) are down. We believe this is a function of several factors, including length of stay, declines in connecting passengers at McCarran and carpooling from southern CA,” Lerner noted in his report.