Chemistry's Spotlight On…
September 2011- Travel by Americans
Spotlight on Travel by Americans
There have been many news stories over the last decade focusing on trends in travel by Americans. Based on these stories, the average person on the street likely has the impression that travel by Americans is trending down – if it hasn’t crashed altogether.
Reasons for the reported decline in travel by Americans have been variously cited as 9/11, BSE (Mad Cow Disease)/SARS, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), increasing gas costs, decreasing value of the U.S. dollar, the recession, competition from other destinations – or a combination of the above. Given that the last decade has provided more than its share of challenges for the travel industry generally, it’s worth having a look at American travel data to see if what is commonly perceived regarding American travel trends meshes with what has actually occurred.
First, let’s consider general U.S. travel patterns over the past ten years – how many Americans are traveling and where are they going? To understand these patterns, we reviewed 10 years of data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation, the U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, and Tourism B.C., related to:
- U.S. Domestic Air Traffic – All Passengers (travel within the U.S.)
- Total U.S. Citizen Air Traffic to All Destinations (total travel outside the U.S.)
- U.S. Citizen Air Traffic to Overseas Destinations, Excluding Mexico and Canada
- U.S. Citizen Air Traffic to Mexico and Canada
- U.S.Visitors to B.C. Same Day and Overnight – All Modes of Transport
The above data reveal basically the same pattern – U.S. traffic declined somewhat the year after 2001, then generally rose for the next five years (2002 to 2007/08) and then declined from 2007/08 to 2010 with some destinations showing a slight uptick between 2009 and 2010.
Please refer to the pdf for more graph details and the full report.
