The National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) data for April 2022 and for the whole year (January through April) are here. In order to make sure that our numbers here at INBOUND are reliable, we went to Warren L. “Skip” Hull, vice president of CIC Research, Inc., which works for NTTO on data and analyses for the agency, and asked him for comment on what the latest numbers mean.
Following are his quick overview of the data, which are presented in more detail in the tables showing us the Top 20 Overseas Source Markets for inbound travel to the USA, as well as arrivals numbers arranged according to major world regions.
Overview:
● April 2022 was a milestone month with more than two million overseas inbound visitors to the U.S. This was the first month to exceed two million overseas visitors to the U.S. since February 2020.
● During the first 18 months of COVID in the U.S. the inbound travel markets that demonstrated greater overall resilience were South America, the Caribbean, and Central America.
● Inbound international travel rebound/recovery from Europe and Canada began in November 2021 with the easing of COVID travel restrictions. This recovery growth trend feels good, but we still have a long way to go.
● Travel from Asia and Oceania were deeply impacted by COVID. The Asian market is still impacted largely due to the Chinese government’s policies to fight their domestic spread of COVID. Oceania has begun to rebuild inbound travel volume to the U.S.
● China generated more than 2.8 million visitors to the U.S. in 2019. In 2020 travel from China dropped to 378.000. In 2021 total travel from China was 192,000. There were only 14,000 visitors from China to the US in April 2022. Without travel from China, there is a large hole in the U.S. inbound travel volume. We don’t know when the travel policies of the Chinese government will ease and travel to the U.S. will begin to rebound.
● Hull is hopeful that this summer the U.S. will grow inbound overseas travel volume to 60 percent or more of the pre-COVID 2019 volume. To reach that level more than 6.9 million overseas visitors would arrive in the U.S. during the third quarter. The first quarter of 2022 recorded 3.4 million overseas visitors.
Top 20 Overseas Tourist-Generating Countries
For Month of April 2022
| Country of Residence & Rank | Number of Arrivals | % Change vs. same period 2021 |
| 1. United Kingdom | 328,200 | 4743.6% |
| 2. France | 141,421 | 3075.1% |
| 3. Germany | 134,973 | 2228.7% |
| 4. India | 102,744 | 205.4% |
| 5. Colombia | 96,311 | 56.9% |
| 6. Brazil | 93,921 | 1425.4% |
| 7. Spain | 75,105 | 1140.6% |
| 8. Netherlands | 53,031 | 2135.7% |
| 9. Italy | 52,147 | 1038.1% |
| 10. Australia | 44,000 | 2632.9% |
| 11. South Korea | 43,721 | 645.7% |
| 12. Ireland | 42,282 | 7923.1% |
| 13. Argentina | 41,704 | 181.4% |
| 14. Dominican Republic | 41,125 | 54.6% |
| 15. Ecuador | 36,974 | 32.8% |
| 16. Israel | 36,372 | 231.7% |
| 17. Switzerland | 35,770 | 2328.4% |
| 18. Chile | 31,877 | 859.3% |
| 19. Japan | 29,416 | 310.9% |
| 20. Sweden | 25,218 | 3834.2% |
| Total Top 20 Overseas Countries | 1,486,312 | 540.5% |
Top 20 Overseas Tourist-Generating Countries
Year-to-Date Through Month of April 2022
| Country of Residence & Rank | Number of Arrivals | % Change vs. Jan-April 2021 |
| 1. United Kingdom | 797,719 | 2979.9% |
| 2. France | 323,767 | 1905.4% |
| 3. Brazil | 315,846 | 1455.0% |
| 4. Germany | 313,821 | 1409.5% |
| 5. India | 291,061 | 130.4% |
| 6. Colombia | 271,552 | 59.8% |
| 7. Spain | 190,521 | 797.5% |
| 8. Argentina | 146,231 | 137.9% |
| 9. Italy | 132,311 | 778.0% |
| 10. Chile | 131,042 | 213.0% |
| 11. South Korea | 117,500 | 344.7% |
| 12. Dominican Republic | 110,952 | 30.0% |
| 13. Ecuador | 108,697 | 42.0% |
| 14. Australia | 105,666 | 1586.1% |
| 15. Netherlands | 103,758 | 1227.2% |
| 16. Ireland | 98,903 | 4620.9% |
| 17. Peru | 93,727 | 27.1% |
| 18. Israel | 83,459 | 243.6% |
| 19. Costa Rica | 76,563 | 75.5% |
| 20. Switzerland | 72,221 | 1510.3% |
| Total Top 20 Overseas Countries | 3,885,317 | 346.7% |
Overseas Visitors to the U.S. by
World Region of Residence
For Month of April 2022
| Region | Number of Arrivals | 2022 Share | % Change vs. same period 2021 |
| Western Europe | 1,007,677 | 49.3% | 2540.3% |
| Eastern Europe | 57,609 | 2.8% | 305.3% |
| Asia | 251,247 | 12.3% | 311.6% |
| Middle East | 67,577 | 3.3% | 210.7% |
| Africa | 22,561 | 1.1% | 195.8% |
| Oceania | 51,818 | 2.5% | 2106.9% |
| South America | 362,812 | 17.8% | 103.1% |
| Central America (Excluding Mexico) | 107,831 | 5.3% | 45.9% |
| Caribbean | 114,472 | 5.6% | 97.8% |
| Total Overseas | 2,043,604 | 100.0% | 348.5% |
Overseas Visitors to the U.S. by
World Region of Residence
Year-to-Date Through April 2022
| Region | Number of Arrivals | 2022 Share | % Change vs. 2021 |
| Western Europe | 2,370,256 | 43.2% | 1612.2% |
| Eastern Europe | 169,931 | 3.1% | 251.6% |
| Asia | 706,704 | 12.9% | 198.3% |
| Middle East | 202,085 | 3.7% | 182.2% |
| Africa | 70,661 | 1.3% | 138.5% |
| Oceania | 122,805 | 2.2% | 1230.8% |
| South America | 1,185,762 | 21.6% | 129.0% |
| Central America (Excluding Mexico) | 335,402 | 6.1% | 60.2% |
| Caribbean | 317,568 | 5.8% | 74.0% |
| Total Overseas | 5,481,174 | 100.0% | 279.7% |
INBOUND reminds the reader that, if you find that you want to dig deeper into your data collection and analysis program, you might want to contact David Huether at the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO). He is deputy director for research, and he can probably help you point your venture in the right direction. You can reach him here: David.Huether@trade.gov.
