Travel Advisors See U.S. Domestic Tourism Evolving Amid Inbound Woes
Skift Take
Domestic leisure travel among Americans appears to be getting stronger, helping to offset declining growth in international visitors to the U.S. It's also growing in new directions, with glamping and cultural tours especially popular.
As growth in inbound tourism to the U.S. declines, Americans are picking up the slack, with travel advisors noting an uptick in U.S. clients seeking domestic experiences —including some that rival overseas journeys in complexity and depth.
Recent figures from U.S. Travel Association’s Travel Trends Index also bear this out, showing that while international travel to the U.S. grew by just 1.2 percent in May over the previous year, domestic tourism grew by 3.6 percent, most of that coming from the leisure sector. The index predicts that international travel growth will slow to just 0.4% over the next six months.
“Domestic leisure travel has been a solid source of demand for the travel industry over the past several years,” said David Huether, U.S. Travel’s senior vice president for research. “This has been especially important given the impediments to international inbound travel growth.”
While the Travel Trends Index currently does not break out domestic travel by state or region, Huether told Skift that U.S. Travel is currently developing a quarterly index that will provide localized data.
A trend for American travelers to explore their own country doesn’t mean that fewer of them are vacationing overseas. The rate of growth in international travel among Americans, however, is relatively low. According to the World Travel
