The National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) has resumed publishing international visitation and spending data and today announced that the United States welcomed more than 76.9 million international visitors into the country in 2017, who collectively spent a record-setting $251.4 billion experiencing the United States, an increase of 2 percent over 2016.
These data reflect the resolution of underlying technical issues with a number of records received from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Customs and Border Protection, which led to the temporary suspension of publication of overseas arrivals data.
“International travelers continue to set spending records visiting the United States, and I expect that trend to continue in 2018 spawning further job growth,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “The American tourism industry, which generated a trade surplus of more than $77.4 billion last year, continues to help drive our economy to new heights.”
U.S. Department of Commerce Arrivals Data Reports Record-Setting Spending by International Visitors
Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administration’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) announced that the United States welcomed nearly 77 million international visitors into the country, who collectively spent a record-setting $251.4 billion experiencing the United States in 2017, a two percent increase when compared to 2016. Over the course of 2017, travel and tourism exports helped support more than 1.2 million American jobs across the United States.
“International travelers continue to set spending records visiting the United States, and I expect that trend to continue in 2018 spawning further job growth,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “The American tourism industry, which generated a trade surplus of more than $77.4 billion last year, continues to help drive our economy to new heights.”
U.S. travel and tourism-related exports accounted for nearly 32 percent of all U.S. services exports and 11 percent of all U.S. exports, with goods and services combined.
Spending on personal travel including leisure, education and health-related travel as well as passenger air transportation increased 3.1 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. Education-relate
The number of international travelers to the United States rose 0.7 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year. Growing markets were led by South Korea (+17.8 percent), Brazil (+11 percent), Argentina (+10 percent), Ireland (+9 percent), and Canada (+4.8 percent). Growing markets outnumbered declining markets by 2-to-1.
On April 9, 2018, NTTO temporarily suspended publication of overseas arrivals data due to anomalies in records received from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Together, the NTTO and CBP identified approximately 4.5 million records that had been misclassified with respect to residency, due to a programing error. The misclassification had not been identified until it became apparent that the records were not reflecting trends consistent with other indicators of overseas travel to the United States.
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