Surf’s Up! (and by “Surf” I mean “Tourism”)
Surely, the first things that come to mind when you hear “Spring Break!” are “what’s been happening to tourism spending, according to official data sources?” and “how many international tourists have visited the U.S., and how has that been changing, again, according to official data sources?” To answer the first question, the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), released its estimates today for 2011 Q4 from its U.S. Travel and Tourism Satellite Accounts [1]. What did the data show? For 2011, tourism spending totaled $1.2 trillion, an increase of 8.1 percent from 2010 and 15 percent from 2009 (see Figure 1). The good folks at BEA also estimate the employment associated with this tourism spending, and, indeed the data reveal tourism supported a lot of jobs. In 2011, BEA estimates that travel and tourism employment totaled 7.6 million, an increase of 103,000 from 2010 (see Figure 2).
A majority of tourism spending in the U.S. comes from people living in the U.S. traveling within the U.S. However, the U.S. tourism industry also benefits from an increasing number of international visitors. The U.S. has a lot to offer foreign visitors. I went to a couple of National Parks in Utah and Montana last fall, and they were spectacular. The Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration estimates the number of international visitors reached 62 million in 2011 [2], up 7.3 million from 2009 (see Figure 3). These international visitors spent an estimated $153 billion, an increase of 27 percent from 2009 (see Figure 4).
Wow. As this money is a transfer from folks from foreign countries to the United States, international visitor spending is considered a U.S. service export, and in fact, international visitors are our single largest U.S. service export so it makes sense to promote the U.S. as a tourist destination. Enjoy your Spring Break!
~Mark Doms, Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Commerce
March 21, 2012
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