International visits to U.S. rose slightly
Revised data show modest gains, but steep drop from Mexico, Middle East
Federal officials released revised data Wednesday that found international travelers to the U.S. grew by 0.7 percent in 2017 over the previous year, despite steep drops from Mexico and the Middle East.
The 77 million international visitors spent a record-setting $251.4 billion on hotels, travel, food and souvenirs, a 2 percent increase over 2016, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office.
The small increase in visitors follows a reported sharp slowdown that began in 2016, which many travel and tourism industry leaders attributed partly to harsh rhetoric against Mexicans and Muslims by then-candidate and current President Donald Trump.
Before Trump's election, the number of international visitors had been climbing steadily, starting in late 2009. The rate of growth increased by as much as 8.9 percent a year until late in 2015, according to federal statistics.
The decline prompted travel and tourism leaders to launch campaign efforts to appeal to foreign visitors.
But in April, the Tourism Office stopped releasing visitation numbers, saying it discovered that 4.5 million records from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency had been misclassified.
The office said in April that the mistake resulted from “a meaningful and increasing number of non-U.S. citizens traveling on visas to the United State being categorized as U.S. residents.”
After adjusting for the mistake, the numbers reported Wednesday found slightly more visitors came to the country in 2016 and 2017. Instead of a 2.4 percent decrease in 2016, the agency now reports a 1.8 percent drop in visitors, compared to the previous year.
For last year, the revised numbers show an increase of 0.7 percent instead of a drop of 1.8 percent compared to 2016.
Last year, the biggest drop-off in international visitors — 12 percent — came from Middle Eastern countries, with a 6 percent decline from Mexico.
Despite the relative improvement, Roger Dow, chief executive of the U.S. Travel Association, said the data show that the U.S. is not keeping pace with a surge in international travel.
“U.S. market share has eroded, which means we are not adequately harnessing global travel growth to keep adding jobs and exports to the U.S. balance sheet,” said Dow, whose group represents hotels, travel agents and others in the industry.