U.S. Tourism in 2007 and Beyond
This year U.S. tourist visitor numbers are expected to reach almost 44 million, up a solid 3.4 percent increase from 2006, yet it is an increase which is very considerably supported by higher passenger flows from the U.S.’s two largest origin countries: Canada and Mexico. These two account for over half of visitors.
Taking the longer view, this year should see tourism finally recover from the effects of 9/11 but that recovery is far from general because there are still countries whose visitor numbers are substantially lower than they were in 2000.
That recovery pattern is central; the inbound visitor recoveries which began in 2003 have not been sustained and now seem to have run out of steam. Consumer research points to the underlying factors.
The European region, which supplies almost a quarter of all U.S. visitors, will grow by just a single percentage point this year to 9.8 million visitors. Within the region, visitors from the UK will number 4.2 million or 10 percent of the total, but there will be fewer of them than last year by a percentage point.
Germans are also in decline. The projected 1.4 million arrivals this year are 2.6 percent less than in 2006 and there will be fewer French visitors with numbers down by almost 3 percent to 0.7 million. By contrast, Swedes and Italians will find increasing attractions in America this year, with visits growing by 2.1 percent and 3.0 percent respectively. Spanish numbers will be up by almost 7 percent.
Besides the “conveniently neighborly” Canadians and Mexicans, rapid growth is also expected in Argentina but with only a quarter of a million visitors expected and importantly, Venezuela with a 6.5 percent uplift this year, and China with half a million tourists arriving this year.
The longer view from 2000 to 2010 shows that the industry has at last regained the numerical position it enjoyed prior to 9/11 but the process has also been a hard one and it has been partial in that several nationalities have visitor levels substantially below the 2000 peak.
