Brand USA Has New Growth Target Rate for Next Five Years

Expecting a “relatively flat year” once all of the international arrivals data are processed for the year 2015, the marketing staff at Brand USA has said it will work to increase the projected annual increase in the rate of international visits to the United States arrivals to the rate of 4.2 percent to 4.84 percent in order reach its previously state “Path to 100 Million” visitors by 2021.

The numbers were a few of the many delivered in a no-nonsense presentation by David Whitaker, chief marketing officer for Brand USA (he is leaving the agency to take over as president and CEO of Choose Chicago) and his marketing department team as they went through a 98-page report during the 56-minute meeting of the agency’s marketing committee on June 2nd.

The focus of the meeting was Brand USA’s proposed marketing budget for Fiscal Year 2017—it starts Oct. 1, 2006—which will account for about 7 out of every 8 dollars spent by the agency. (See final table below.) The budget is expected to be approved at the full Brand USA board of directors meeting June 9th in Washington, D.C.

Then, just 11 days later, Brand USA will discuss its plans for the coming year at an 8 a.m. news conference on June 20th at IPW in New Orleans. There will also be a presentation at the IPW luncheon that day. And staff will be meeting throughout IPW with partners in order to develop final plans for FY 17.

Christopher Thompson, Brand USA’s president and CEO, said that the IPW presentation will include a “tease” of its new fall campaign, as well as a discussion of a greatly expanded online presence for Brand USA.

Efforts Will Increase in “New” Key Markets: As are other players in the U.S. inbound tourism industry, Brand USA and its marketing committee have been hampered by a nearly one-year delay in the compilation of international arrivals data—a delay due to problems in information gathering, processing and delivery at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) will not, as it usually does each year, use the occasion of IPW to issue a new long-term forecast. The next forecast will come this fall at the annual Marketing Outlook Forum of the Travel and Tourism Research Association, which will take place Oct. 24-26 in Fort Lauderdale.  In the interim, Brand USA is using data from its Path to 100 Million, which lean on data for the full year 2014.

There are enough data indicating that the inbound tourism is not growing at a rate that is fast enough to reach the previously stated goal of 100 million international visitors by 2021. A major reason has been a decline in visitor counts from Canada, which is expected to be worse once 2015 data are available. Thompson also pointed to a weakened Brazilian market as reasons. Numbers from both Canada and Brazil, he suggested, were largely due to a strong U.S. dollar.

As a consequence, he explained, Brand USA is targeting a yearly increase in arrivals that, considering that the numbers in question are in the scores of millions, that is significant.

The Path to 100 Million Visitors by 2021–Revisited

The agency will be elevating the degree of priority it gives to four markets, most notably France and Colombia (see table below), both of which are in the Inbound Report’s Top 15 Overseas Sources Markets. As other tables will show, the Netherlands will be relied on to increase its visitor numbers to the U.S.

Market Prioritization: Prime Volume Markets

Market Prioritization: Targeted Volume Markets

Market Prioritization: New Volume Markets

Key staff indicated that they expect that NTTO data will show that traffic from Canada dropped 10 percent in 2015. This, along with an anticipated decline in visitation from Brazil, has caused Brand USA to recalculate the growth rate that will be required to achieve the path to 100 million.

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Finally, as the meeting neared its conclusion, the proposed marketing budget for FY 17 was laid out in the context of Brand USA’s overall budget for the year.