China, Mexico and South American Markets Tanking through First Eight Months of Year: The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTT0) last week released preliminary data on international arrivals through the first eight months of 2017 which suggest that, if the global market performance of the U.S. as a destination continues as it did through August, it will fall short of NTTO’s own estimate for 2017. Issued three weeks ago, that estimate indicated that 2017 will produce an overall figure for international arrivals just a tenth of a percent lower than it was in 2016.
Some random notions that jump out of the tables of arrivals data for the Top 15 overseas source markets, as well as Canada and Mexico—these two markets furnish more than half of all international arrivals to the U.S.—include the following:
—China shows a year-to-date decline of 5.6 percent vs. 2016, even though NTTO’s estimate for full-year arrivals indicates an increase of 2 percent. This may have been a result of visa rejections early in the year when Embassy visa officials were more aggressively screening applicants.
—Mexico’s arrivals seem to track with what NTTO is projecting for 2017, which amounts to a major decrease vs. 2016. This means a decline of more than 1.5 million visitors.
—South America’s four top markets—Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela—all show year-to-date declines.
—Meanwhile, of the top five source markets from the Eurozone—Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands—only Germany showed a reduction in year-to-date arrivals for 2017 vs. 2016, and a small one at that: down just four tenths of a percent. The strength of the Eurozone block is due, possibly, to the Euro’s gain upon the U.S. dollar in 2016.
Here are the numbers, which speak for themselves.
