By A.J. Muldoon
Recently, the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, part of the United States Department of Commerce, released a forecast predicting that international visitors to the US will begin to rebound in 2010. In 2008, a record 58 million foreign visitors arrived in the United States. That number is expected to fall by 8 percent in 2009 due to the global recession and its chilling effect on business and leisure travel. However, the agency predicts that there will be a slow 3 percent recovery in international arrivals by the end of 2010.
Airlines have struggled to maintain yields for much of 2009. As passengers have cut back on travel, carriers have dramatically cut fares to spur traffic. Year to date, Atlantic, Latin and Pacific yields are down 20.5 percent, 13.2 percent and 16.4 percent respectively. Over the last two months, this declining trend has seemed to level-off somewhat. This would come as welcome news to the airline industry as international traffic is the typically the most lucrative, and its loss over the past year has been particularly devastating.
The tourism office predicts that the two largest U.S. travel markets, Canada and Mexico, will set new records for visitors to the U.S. by 2011. However, as the agency does not distinguish between modes of travel, it is possible much of this increase could be through surface transportation.
Europe is expected to post an 8 percent drop in 2009 followed by slow growth thereafter through 2013. Asia-Pacific will post the largest drop in arrivals for 2009 at 11 percent. However, by 2013 the agency predicts that most major Asian markets such as China, India, Korea and Australia will post double-digit growth. South America is a lone bright spot that is expected to generate a 1 percent increase in arrivals for 2009 and generate significant growth throughout the forecast period.
OTTI Press Release: http://www.tinet.ita.doc.gov/