US outbound travel

The US citizen outbound market totalled 28.2m travellers for the first six months of 2011.  It is not possible to compare the figures with the previous year as the authorities have now gone over to a paperless system.  For the future it is hoped that the figures will be available monthly.

Canada (4.6m) and Mexico (10.3m) take the lion’s share with 53% of all ex-US travel.

Travel to Europe was 18% of the 5.2m visitors.  The Caribbean was popular too at 3.2m followed by Asia 2.0m.  The number of Americans visiting Africa is very small, 175,000, just 1% of the total market.

With the exception of Canada and Mexico these are air-only figures and give some indication why the United States invests heavily in such exhibitions as ITB Berlin (in March), and London’s WTM, traditionally in November. www.tinet.ita.doc.gov

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