While the overall number of visitors from China to the United States declined in 2018 and has declined again so far this year, the number of its students to the U.S. actually increased by just under two percent, during the same period (the 2018-2019 school year).

This is just a single example of the “I didn’t know that!” moments one has in reviewing the just-released Open Doors Report of the Institute of International Education (IIE)—it is a U.S. State Department-supported organization*—which keeps tabs on the number of international students who study at U.S. universities and colleges. The nearly 1.1 million students (a record number) in the USA comprise a lucrative inbound source market, generating visits not only by the students, but by their families and friend who visit campuses across the U.S.

Some of the more interesting numbers found in the Open Doors report include the following:

—One-third (33.7 percent) of all international students are from China.

—More than one out of every two international students are from China or India.

—California schools and universities receive the greatest number of international students.

—So great is the number of students from China that, were it a source market on its own, it would be the 23rd largest overseas market for visitors to the United States, ahead of Number 24, Chile, and behind Number 22, Israel.

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Travel & Tourism Office; Institute of International Education

Following is a sampler of some of the IIE Open Doors report tables which underscore the size and impact of the international student market in the United States

*Note on the Source: The Institute of International Education (IIE) has conducted an annual census of international students in the U.S. since its founding in 1919. Known as the Open Doors Report since 1954, and supported by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State since 1972, the report provides detailed data on student flows into and out of the U.S. Visit us online at: http://www.iie.org/opendoors.

State Fact Sheets Available: If you would like to see how your state fares with the international student market, with data that includes economic impact and other information, click here.

Last year 26½ percent of all visitors from the USA’s overseas source markets—this excludes Canada and Mexico—came to New York City. This translates into an increase of 473 thousand overseas visitors, which is larger than the total amount of overseas that most cities in the United States receive in a year.

The dominance of the New York area is not a solitary phenomenon.  If you review the latest posting of data by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel & Tourism Office (NTTO), you will be able to see that just six destinations (New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Orlando, San Francisco and Las Vegas) attract about 4 out of every 5 overseas visitors—or more than 79 percent of such visitors. Below, the recently released city data for 2018 and 2017 are arranged in roughly the same format as you’ll find them on the NTTO website.

For a fuller account of the Top 25, including commentary on each of the attractions, click here.

Those who held on to the notion that there were some prognosticators around who might project that the outlook for international inbound tourism to the United States would have a robust ending to 2019 will be disappointed with the latest snapshot and forecast contained the U.S. Travel Association’s Travel Trends Index (TTI) for September, which came out smack in the middle of things, day two, of last week’s World Travel Market in London.

Prior to the release of the TTI data INBOUND’s team of sources on site at London’s ExCel in East London had heard nothing from anyone that would suggest a change in the USA’s slightly downward glide path, and after the TTI release, the sound of nothing and no one speaking continued, especially as one read US Travel’s sober and official language:

“International inbound contracted in September (-0.4 percent), continuing the segment’s weakness. The Leading Travel Index (LTI) projects that inbound travel volume will decline about 0.6 percent over the next six months compared to the same period last year.”

While 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent are not large declines, they take on a different scale when one considers the size of the overall inbound tourism market—about 80 million visitors in 2018.

The year-on-year decrease for the month of September—minus 0.4 percent, which marked the fifth month in negative territory in 2019—is generally consistent with the direction of arrivals contained in a report from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel & Tourism Office (NTTO) cited in the previous issue of INBOUND, in which overseas arrivals (this excludes Mexico and Canada) to the U.S. declined by a full 5 percent, year-on-year.

What no one seems to want to accept, however, is the forecast that inbound tourism traffic will decline, however slight it might be, through the next six months, which comprise some of the peak travel booking months for key international markets.

Overall, though, the health of the travel and tourism business in the United States is good. The TTI’s Current Travel Index reading of 51.1 in September 2019 indicates that travel to or within the U.S. grew 2.2 percent in September 2019 compared to September 2018. The TTI’s predictive component, the Leisure Leading Travel Index, predicts that “travel growth will moderate through March 2020, a result of softer growth in domestic leisure travel and continued weakness in international inbound and domestic business travel.”

Here is what the key graphic in the latest (September) TTI looks like:

Source: Oxford Economics, U.S. Travel Association

Note: The TTI is prepared for U.S. Travel by the research firm Oxford Economics. The TTI is based on public- and private-sector source data which are subject to revision by the source agency. The TTI draws from: advance search and bookings data from ADARA and nSight; airline bookings data from the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC); IATA, OAG and other tabulations of international inbound travel to the U.S.; and hotel room demand data from STR.