Tourism has rebounded strongly in many major tourism markets across the world. Spain has recovered 86% of its pre-pandemic tourist arrivals in 2022, and this year’s arrivals have already shown a 28% increase over 2019 levels. Similarly, France is following closely, with year-to-date international visitors just 3% less than before the Covid-19 pandemic, and their spending has reached record levels, according to Atout France, a government tourism agency.
However, the US is experiencing a slower recovery in its international tourism sector. As of June 2023, international tourist arrivals remain 26% below pre-pandemic levels, and spending is also slower. In 2022, international visitor spending in the US was only $99 billion, which is slightly over 50% of what it was in 2019 when the US received 79.4 million visitors who spent $181 billion.
Geoff Freeman, the CEO of US Travel Association, expresses concern over the significant lag in the US tourism industry and estimates a loss of about 2.6 million international visitors and $7 billion less in spending for the current year. The US travel industry is not expected to fully recover to 2019 levels until 2025, resulting in significant financial losses and job impacts during these additional years.
For the first time in history, the US is running a multiyear travel deficit, as Americans are spending more money on their travels abroad than international tourists are spending within the US
One major obstacle to the recovery of US tourism is the bureaucracy and delays in the State Department’s US visa processing. As of early July, visa wait times remained excessively high, particularly for first-time applicants from top markets that do not qualify for visa waivers. In 2019, travelers requiring visas to enter the US accounted for 43% of all inbound international travel. The prolonged wait times are discouraging potential travelers from considering the US as a destination. While the government has acknowledged the problem and made some improvements for applicants from India and Brazil, there is still much concern over the impact of these delays on the tourism industry.
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