US government officials published revised data of inbound tourism which contrary to expectation showed a marginal increase in arrivals during 2017.
The updated National Travel and Tourism Office data showed arrivals grew 0.7% in 2017, generating record spending of $251.4 billion.
The agency had earlier reported a drop of 1.8% compared to 2016.
The Tourism Office halted the publication of data earlier this year after it said up to 4.5 million records from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency had been misclassified.
Embarrassingly, the agency found ‘a meaningful and increasing number of non-U.S. citizens traveling on visas to the United States are being categorized as U.S. residents.’
Crucially, the United States’ market share of global tourism is falling and last year’s data showed steep drops from markets which have been targeted by the Trump Administration’s tough rhetoric – Mexico and the Middle East.
Visitation from the Middle East fell by 12% and 6% from Mexico.
The country is falling behind other nations which are keeping pace with surging international travel, said Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
"US market share has eroded, which means we are not adequately harnessing global travel growth to keep adding jobs and exports to the US balance sheet," Dow said.
