Foreign travel spending in U.S. up for first time in 15 months

by Tom Johansmeyer on

International visitor spending in the United States is finally on the rise! Last February, travelers from overseas spent $10.4 billion on travel and travel-related purchases, an increase of almost $180 million from February 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. This was the first increase in more than 15 months.

The money wasn’t spent on travel itself, however. Passenger fare receipts received by U.S. carriers and vessel operators from visitors outside the country fell 6 percent to $2.2 billion for the month, a drop of $134 million. Meanwhile, purchases of goods and services related to tourism and travel in the United States reached $8.2 billion, representing a 4 percent year-over-year increase. These purchases include food, lodging, recreation, gifts, entertainment and local transportation.

Travel industry loses $100 billion

by Tom Johansmeyer on

If 2008 was bad for the travel business in the United States, 2009 was worse. With 54.9 million people coming into the country, international visitation was off 5 percent. And, those who came spent far less. Visitors from abroad dropped only $121 billion last year, a 15 percent decline that cost our economy $21 billion. This is the worst year-over-year drop in spending in history, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

It wasn’t all bad last year: much of the financial damage was in one place. The $4.6 billion by which UK visitor spending fell was greater than that from Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. Nonetheless, concentrated losses had a global impact. The travel and tourism industry lost 400,000 jobs, eliminating virtually all employment gains for the sector since 2004. And, total travel and tourism spending in the U.S. (not just international) fell by $100 billion from 2008.

Could Apple fix airports?

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Maybe this is exactly what we needed – someone from outside the aviation industry to fix it. With Apple‘s latest patent, iTravel, the company stands to make some cash on mobile payments and paperless ticketing, and it could alleviate the bottlenecks we rush into at so many points while traveling. New regs look like they’ll yield a substantial paperless boarding pass/check-in market, according to a post on SocialTimes, and Apple wants a big piece of it. Hell, Apple probably wants all of it – who could blame them?

Now, it appears there’s potential beyond merely taking paper out of tickets and boarding passes. Other reservations and rentals could be brought into the system, using an approach similar to the iPhone-based payment system adopted by Starbucks. The possibilities are endless, as suggested by the hypothetical proposed on SocialTimes:

Imagine this scenario: you visit an iTravel-enabled website (or via your iPhone), book a vacation package including hotel and car rental, with details downloadable to your iPhone, which in turn triggers information for the NFC chip. A barcode or QR code on your iPhone, displayed by the iTravel app, is scanned for your airplane boarding pass. You can check in your luggage yourself, at a special unmanned kiosk, and claim your luggage on arrival at a similar kiosk, thereby reducing wait times at carousels. You arrive at your hotel without manually checking in, go straight up to your room and wave your NFC-enabled phone near the NFC-enabled security plate, and voila, your door opens. Later, when you go to the check-in desk to ask about restaurants, your iPhone gets a push notification to join an ad hoc network (courtesy of Apple’s iGroups patent) which lets you see if any contacts you know might be nearby. You also get access to special coupon offers for transportation, if you decided not rent a car. You might even potentially be able to pay transit fees with your phone – something trialled successfully in various places around the world.

Apple may not own the travel market yet, but it certainly has the potential to seize a decent portion of it. If Apple were to launch an online travel agency and integrate it with a variety of device-driven services that make lines shorter and reduce frustration, it would be an unstoppable force in this business. To see how Apple could change the business, go visit your local Tower Records. Oh, right …

January visits to U.S. offer glimmer of hope

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The rush of data from the U.S. Department of Commerce continues. In January 2010, 3.4 million international visitors came to the United States, an increase of 10 percent from January 2009. This is the fourth month in a row that international visitation ticked higher. But, this surge in arrivals hasn’t been enough to lift spending, as the cash put out by visitors from outside the country fell 3 percent from January 2009 to January 2010.

Seventeen of the top 20 countries (in terms of sending visitors to the United States), showed increases – nine of them double digits. Canada, Brazil, South Korea, China (and Hong Kong), Australia, Argentina, Spain, Colombia and Switzerland put up the big growth numbers in January.

Canada posted an increase of 13 percent, with 1.3 million coming to the United States, while Mexico was only good for a 3 percent gain (416,000 visitors in January). Western Europe was sluggish, with a gain of only 1 percent, though travel to the United States increased for seven of the top 10 markets in this region: Germany (5 percent), France (4 percent), Italy (7 percent), Spain (10 percent), Netherlands (3 percent), Sweden (5 percent) and Switzerland (14 percent). The United Kingdom dragged the average down, with a year-over-year decline of 5 percent.
Seven of the top 10 markets in Asia posted increases, as well, led by South Korea (40 percent), Singapore (18 percent) and China (15 percent). In South America, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia were up 30 percent, 12 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Visits from Venezuela were off 8 percent.

The money may be down, but visits are up, and that’s a step in the right direction. It’s still too early to call this a travel market recovery, as airlines remain under pressure and hotel pricing is expected to remain flat through the end of the year. But, the up-tick in international at least means that people are getting on planes again and coming to the United States.

Visitor spending in U.S. drops for 15th consecutive month

by Tom Johansmeyer on


International visitor spending is still heading in the wrong direction. In January, travelers coming to the United States from abroad spent only $10.3 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, a decline of 3 percent from January 2009. In hard cash, that’s a drop of $310 million.

Travel receipts amounted to $8.1 billion in January – that’s money spent on travel and tourism-related goods and represents a fall of 1 percent from January 2009. This includes food, lodging, recreation, gifts, entertainment and local transportation within the United States. Passenger fare receipts, the money spent on U.S. carriers and vessel operators, from international visitors fell 10 percent to $2.3 billion, with $300 million in spending disappearing from the same month last year.

January 2010 was the fifteenth month in a row in which spending on U.S. travel and tourism exports fell (when compared to the same month the prior year). Before the financial crisis took hold at the end of 2008, growth had increased for more than 60 consecutive months. Fortunately, the declines appear to be slowing. In December 2009, travel exports were off 8 percent.