As a significant part of the international travel and tourism industry population prepares to go to London next week for World Travel Market and the ritualistic sharing of information and intelligence that it always warrants, delegates will have much to talk about: Brexit, to be sure; trade war impacts; and now, a market that has gone flat for the United States—down a half-percent for the month of September and up just one percent for the year vs. 2018.
In fact, the worst monthly numbers of the year have come out of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) just-released quick-read of arrivals for key overseas inbound tourism source markets for September 2019. Aside from India and Spain, and surprisingly strong numbers out of Japan, all top markets and some top regional markets had losses or only modest single-digit percentage increases versus 2018.
Even the host country for WTM, the UK, dipped slightly in September, although the number of travelers it has sent to the USA is up, year-to-date, vs. 2018.
Here are the key tables released by NTTO:
