Travel and tourism spend decelerated in the first quarter of 2015, official figures show.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports first-quarter travel spend increased at an annual rate of 2%, substantially down on the 2014 fourth-quarter figure of 4.9%.
By comparison, real gross domestic product (GDP) turned down, decreasing 0.7% (second estimate) in the first quarter after increasing 2.2%.
Overall growth in prices for travel and tourism goods and services continued to decline in the first quarter of 2015, decreasing 9.1% following a decrease of 4.7% (revised) in the fourth quarter.
The continued decline was mainly attributable to a large decrease in ‘all other transportation-related commodities’, which includes gasoline; this commodity group decreased 33.4% in the first quarter after decreasing 23.5% in the fourth quarter.
Employment in the travel and tourism industries decelerated, increasing 2.3% in the first quarter of 2015 after increasing 2.9 percent (revised) in the fourth quarter.
This marks the 20th consecutive quarter of employment growth in the travel and tourism industries.
Total tourism-related output was $1.6 trillion in the first quarter of 2015. It consisted of $905.4 billion (58%) of direct tourism spending and $663.2 billion (42%) of indirect tourism-related spending.
