After several months of wondering — and what turned out to be some misplaced optimism — the United States is discovering a not-so-rosy picture for international inbound tourism in 2017.
The U.S. Travel Association revised earlier upbeat projections to present a “substantially more pessimistic assessment” of travel to the U.S., warning of “major storm clouds for the inbound international travel market.”
The organization debuted a Travel Trends Index (TTI) calculated by Oxford Economics last year, with the goal of anticipating future changes in travel demand. Throughout 2017, it has shown strength in both international inbound travel and domestic business travel that was a bit unexpected given the political situation in the U.S.
With the revised projections, U.S. Travel said international visitation actually contracted in four of the first seven months of the year, with February (down 6.8 percent) and March (down 8.2 percent) for the weakest months of the year. That contradicted its own earlier reports that showed international numbers growing consistently.
The revised index incorporates fresh data from the International Air Transport Association, air travel intelligence company OAG, Sabre, and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
“We kept projecting drops in international visitation, and they kept not materializing,” David Huether, U.S. Travel’s senior vice president of research, said in a statement. “However, we recently were able to access new data inputs for the TTI to give us an even more comprehensive picture, and sure enough, the international travel segment has been far weaker than what was initially shown.”
Travel demand slowed in July, according to the updated index. Domestic business travel declined in July after increasing in May and June, but an uptick over the next several months is expected. Looking forward, the association expects total travel volume in the U.S. to grow at a rate of 1.2 percent through January. Domestic travel is forecast to be up 1.6 percent.
Numbers from the U.S. Department of Commerce show that through March 2017, total overseas travel to the U.S. has declined by 7.8 percent compared to 2016.
