The international inbound tourism in the year 2017 presented a miserable spectacle as the U.S. Travel Association revised earlier optimistic estimates to present an assessment of the recent travel market. The report now warns of ‘storm clouds for the inbound international travel market.
This organization debuted a Travel Trends Index (TTI) that was calculated by Oxford Economic is 2016.
It has a goal of anticipating future alterations in travel demand. All through 2017, it had portrayed strength in international inbound travel and also domestic business travel that was completely unexpected, owing to the turmoil-filled political scenario of the US.
The revised projections were rolled out on Tuesday, 5th September.
It said that the international tourist arrivals to the US had minimized in four of the first seven months of the year as February registered a decline of about 6.8% and March about 8.2% for the weakest months of the year. Now, this has been a sharp contrast to the earlier reports that portrayed the international visitor numbers growing consistently.
The modified index incorporates new data from the International Air Transport Association, air intelligence company OAG, Sabre and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
David Huether who is the senior vice president of research said in a statement that they have been projecting slump in international visitation.
In July 2017 the travel demand started slowing down as per the newly updated travel index. Domestic corporate travel declined in July after it increased in May and June. Having said that, an uptick over the new months is expected.
The association expects that the total travel volume in the U.S. would be growing at a rate of 1.2% through January.
Domestic travel is expected to rise by 1.6%.
The statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce show that through March 2017. Total overseas travel to the US has slumped by 7.8% as compared to 2016. Total international travel has dropped by 4.2%, as revealed by the Commerce Department.
International travel to the U.S. has also slumped in 2016 by about 2.4%.
U.S. Travel feels that for the next six months the growth will be spearheaded mainly by domestic travel, even though domestic travel growth is estimated to be slow. In May the Global Business Travel Association had projected a loss of $1.3 billion in terms of overall travel-related spending in the US from Europe and the Middle East.
